^'  PRINCETON,  N.  J.  ^ 


Purchased   by  the    Hamill    Missionary   Fund. 


BV  2775  .C6  1903 

Clark,  Joseph  B.  1836-1923. 
Leavening  the  nation 


LEAVENING  THE  NATION 


Alexander  Huntington  Ci.app,  D.D. 
Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Congregational   Home  Missionary 
Society  from  1865  to  1878.     Treasurer  from  1878  to  1893.     Honorary 
Treasurer  from  1893  to  1897.     Editorial  Secretary  from  1897  to  1899. 


LEAVENING    THE   NATION 


THE  STORY  OF  AMERICAN 
HOME  MISSIONS 


JOSEPH  B.  "CLAEK,  D.D. 

Secretary  of  the  Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society 


NEW  YORK 

THE  BAKEK  &  TAYLOR  CO. 

33-37  E.  17th  Stbeet,  Union  Squabe  Nobth 


Copyright,  1903,  by 

THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 

Published  February  190S. 


ROBERT  DRUMMOND,  PRINTER,   NEW  YORK. 


TO  THE 

^^ome  Missionax^  |)astors  of  ^mmco 

AND   THEIR   WIVES, 

WHO  WITH   LITTLE    PRAISE    OF   MEN   ARE    LAYING  THE 

REAL   FOUNDATIONS 

OF 

NATIONAL  STRENGTH   AND   PROSPERITY, 

THIS  RECORD   OF   HOME    MISSIONARY   ENDEAVOR 

IS  GRATEFULLY    DEDICATED. 


PREFACE 

"  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  leaven.'*  Few  thought- 
ful Americans  need  enlightening  as  to  the  theory  of 
Home  Missions.  They  will  generally  agree  with  Presi- 
dent Eliot  that  "the  Church  is  the  permanent  organ  of 
society's  Hfe  " — a  modern  version  and  no  betterment  of 
Paul's  "pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth.''  Plant  a  Chris- 
tian church  in  any  community  and  it  becomes  at  once  the 
nucleus  of  law,  order,  moral  living,  and  civic  virtue. 
Such  communities  multipHed  across  the  State  give 
character  to  a  commonwealth,  and  such  multiphed 
commonwealths  make  a  nation  strong  by  making  it 
righteous.  Not  to  argue,  but  to  illustrate,  so  obvious 
a  truth  is  the  purpose  of  this  book. 

Three  ways  of  approach  were  open  to  the  writer. 
The  Denominational  and  the  Chronological  treatment 
(by  decades)  were  attractive  by  their  promise  of  ease 
and  simpUcity.  But  in  these  days  of  "low  fences  and 
fading  land-marks"  it  seemed  unwise,  as  it  was  cer- 
tainly distasteful,  to  exploit  Home  Missions  by  sect. 
It  was  also  discovered  that  history  does  not  divide  itself 
conveniently  into  ten-year  blocks  of  time.  Both 
methods  were  rejected,  the  one  as  unseasonable  and  the 
other  as  artificial.  There  remained  the  Historical  or 
Genetic  method.  It  has  been  the  claim  of  Home  Mis- 
sions that  it  followed  the   people  as   the   fisherman 


vi  Preface 

follows  the  fish.  Its  story  is  thus  identified  with  that 
of  American  settlements;  the  two  are  interwoven  like 
warp  and  woof,  and  cannot  be  separated  without  de- 
stroying the  fabric.  The  historical  treatment,  there- 
fore, though  involving  vastly  more  labor,  has  been 
adopted  as  the  only  adequate  one  for  the  theme. 

Of  the  inadequacy  of  the  result  no  one  can  be  more 
profoundly  conscious  than  the  author.  Critical  readers 
will  soon  discover  that  they  have  here  little  more  than 
the  story  of  beginnings,  the  bringing  of  the  leaven  and 
the  meal  together.  The  quickening  process,  covering 
countless  sheets  of  correspondence  and  thousands  of 
pages  of  printed  annals,  would  require,  however  con- 
densed, several  volumes  of  this  size.  The  cyclopaedia 
of  Home  Missions  is  still  to  be  written.  Even  in  this 
limited  attempt  the  author  would  be  glad  to  believe 
that  no  errors  of  statement  or  more  subtle  errors  of 
proportion  have  crept  in.  He  can  only  claim  to  have 
used  constant  diligence  in  avoiding  them;  and  should 
essential  error  be  discovered,  he  will  count  it  a  personal 
favor  to  have  it  pointed  out  for  future  correction 
should  the  opportunity  ever  occur. 

One  class  of  readers  has  been  kept  continually  in  view, 
that  already  large  and  growing  number  of  women  in  our 
churches  who  are  making  a  systematic  study  of  Home 
Missions  and  preparing  programs  of  study  for  others. 
It  is  hoped  that  frequent  references  made  to  books  and 
articles  containing  a  fuller  treatment  of  topics  named 
will  be  found  useful  to  them. 

The  writer  is  indebted  to  many  sources  of  informa- 
tion which  have  been  acknowledged  in  the  text  or  in 
notes.  Special  acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  Secre- 
taries of  all  the  Home  Boards  who  have  furnished  val- 


Preface  vii 

uable  documents;  to  Dr.  Joseph  E.  Roy,  of  Chicago, 
whose  accurate  historical  studies  in  Home  Missions  as 
well  as  his  personal  counsel  have  been  available;  and  to 
Dr.  H.  K.  Carroll,  Superintendent  of  the  Rehgious 
Census  of  the  United  States,  whose  elaborate  figures 
showing  the  religious  forces  of  the  country  have  been 
a  constant  reference. 


CONTENTS 


THE  PREPARATION 

PAOB 

Christian  definition  of  history. — Providential  direction  of 
Columbus. — Spain's  attempt  at  conquest  and  possession. 
— ^Vast  and  swift  successes ;  culmination :  decline ;  final 
coUapse. — Bishop  O'Gorman's  verdict. — The  French 
experiment;  its  eariy  success;  its  final  failure. — Arrival 
of  the  real  fathers  and  founders  of  America. — Separa- 
tists and  Puritans. — The  religious  and  missionary  char- 
acter of  the  early  settlers.  The  Plymouth  colony,  New 
Amsterdam,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Pennsylvania. 
Maryland,  the  Carolinas,  Georgia. — All  sorts  and  condi- 
tions represented. — Our  prehistoric  home  missionaries. 
— ^Mr.  Bancroft  quoted 11 

II 

NEW  ENGLAND  IN  1798 

Why  this  date  chosen. — John  Robinson's  prophecy  and  how 
it  was  fulfilled. — Church  at  Salem. — Congregationalism 
in  New  England  in  1798. — "The  Great  Awakening"  in 
1740.  George  Whitefield,  Jonathan  Edwards.  Sur- 
prising conversions. — Effects  of  the  Great  Awakening. 
— The  judgment  of  posterity. — Theological  contention, 
— Unitarian  defection. — Effect  of  the  War  of  the  Revo- 
lution on  the  churches. — Birdseye  view  of  the  country 
in  1798. — The  beginning  of  organized  home  missions. — 
Sporadic  efforts  preceding. — Missionary  Society  of  Con- 
necticut.— Preamble  to  the  Constitution  and  Article 
IV. — Massachusetts  foUows  Connecticut, — The  Socie- 


Contents 


ties  national  not  local. — The  prophetic  wisdom  of  the 
New-England  fathers. — New  Hampshire,  Maine  and 
Vermont  have  societies. — The  Baptists  of  New  England 
organize,  1802 20 

III 

THE  EARLY  WEST 

Changes  in  sectional  nomenclature. — A  new  definition  of  the 
West  in  every  decade. — New  York  State  in  the  year 
1800. — Presbyterians  in  Pennsylvania,  New  York  and 
New  Jersey. — Presbyterian  immigration  in  the  seven- 
teenth century. — First  Presbyterian  Church. — The 
General  Assembly  organized. — Strength  of  the  church 
at  this  time. — The  Reformed  Church. — Missionary 
movement  begins,  1786. — Action  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, 1802. — Standing  Committee  on  missions  appointed. 
—The  "Plan  of  Union."— How  it  began.— What  it 
meant. — Its  supposed  author. — Its  ideal  advantages. — 
How  and  why  it  failed. — The  provincial  view  of  New 
England. — Western  New  York,  Northern  and  South- 
eastern Ohio  the  first  points  of  attack. — Rapid  growth 
of  churches.  Congregational  and  Presbyterian,  under 
missionary  culture. — New  Connecticut;  rapid  develop- 
ment.— David  Bacon,  Joseph  Badger,  Thomas  Robbins. 
— Prophecy  of  the  Connecticut  Society. — Settlement  of 
Marietta;  Manasseh  Cutler. — Summary  of  the  work  of 
the  Connecticut  Society  at  the  end  of  thirty  years. — 
Sacrifices  of  the  missionaries;  hardships  of  travel. — 
Destitution  of  the  early  West  and  the  providential 
appearance  of  organized  home  missions 33 

IV 

THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY— ORDINANCE 

OF  1787 

The  importance  and  vast  influence  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787. 
— Manasseh  Cutler;  his  wonderful  versatility. — The 
Northwest   Territory;   its   size   and   bounds. — Slavery 


Contents 


forbidden  by  the  Ordinance.— Birth  of  American  nation- 
alism.— Three  distinct  streams  of  immigration  into  the 
Northwest  Territory.— The  value  of  German  immigra- 
tion.—"  Keystone  of  the  Union."— Its  influence  on  the 
further  West.— Its  influence  on  the  South.— The  center 
of  population. — Enormous  growth. — Center  of  Ameri- 
can manufactures.— The  home  of  six  Presidents  of  the 
United  States  since  1860  and  of  eminent  leaders  of  the 
avil  War.— The  effect  of  the  Northwest  Territory  upon 
home  missions. — The  provincialism  of  New  England 
yields  to  a  continental  estimate.— America's  judgment 
day  in  the  West.— President  Dwight's  soUcitude  for  the 
West 


THE  NORTHWEST  TERRITORY— OHIO, 
INDIANA,  ILLINOIS 

Settlement  of  Marietta  in  1788.— The  new  Mayflower.— 
Indian  hostiUties. — Moses  Cleaveland  and  the  Western 
Reserve. — The  Virginian  Military  District. — Population 
in  1797.— Benefits  of  the  Ordinance.- Beginnings  in 
Indiana. — WilUam  Henry  Harrison,  Governor. — Ef- 
forts to  legalize  slavery. — Tecumseh. — Tippecanoe. — 
Beginnings  in  Illinois. — Chicago  in  1810. — Change  in 
the  policy  of  home  missions. — Organization  of  a  Nation- 
al Society  proposed. — Agency  of  Nathaniel  Bouton. — 
Ordination  of  home  missionaries  in  Boston. — Organiz- 
ing convention  in  New  York,  May  10th,  1826. — The 
united  Domestic  Missionary  Society  of  New  York. — 
The  American  Home  Missionary  Society  organized.— 
The  effect  upon  the  work. — Migration  of  Ohioans  west- 
ward.— Population  of  Indiana  in  1826. — Northern 
Congregationalism  in  Indiana. — Dr.  Nathaniel  A.  Hyde. 

Beginnings  in  Illinois. — Mills  and  Schermerhom. — 

Salmon  Giddings  at  St.  Louis. — Illinois  and  slavery. — 
John  M.  Peck. — First  Sermon  in  Chicago,  Jeremiah 
Porter.— The  Illinois  Band.— John  M.  Ellis  and  Illinois 
College.— President  J.  M.  Sturtevant,  Theron  Baldwin, 


47 


Contents 

PAGE 

Asa  Turner,  Dr.  Edward  Beecher. — Results  of  the  Illi- 
nois Band 55 

VI 

THE   NORTHWEST  TERRITORY— MICHIGAN 
AND   WISCONSIN 

Territorial  history  of  Michigan. — Unfriendliness  of  Great 
Britain. — George  Rogers  Clark  captures  Kaskaskia. — 
Obstinacy  of  the  Indians. — The  Jay  Treaty  with  Great 
Britain. — Detroit  conceded  to  the  United  States. — War 
of  1812. — Lewis  Cass  appointed  Governor,  with  happy 
effect. — Beginning  of  home  missions,  1809. — John 
Montieth,  Father  Richard,  O.  C.  Thompson,  John  D. 
Pierce. — The  "  Catholepistemiad,  or  the  University  of 
Michigania." — Education  and  State  responsibility. — 
Interest  of  the  Indians  in  education. — The  University 
of  Michigan. — General  Isaac  E.  Crary  and  education. — 
Testimony  of  T.  M.  Cooley.— The  "Stump  District" 
and  the  "Copper  Country." — Three  Michigans  in  one. — 
Baptists  and  Presbyterians  in  Michigan. — Wisconsin  as 
a  Territory. — Missionary  journey  of  Stephen  Peet. — 
Effect  of  his  narrative. — Anonymous  gift  for  Wisconsin 
missions. — German  elements  in  Wisconsin. — Results  of 
missionary  labor. — General  review  of  the  Northwest 
Territory 73 

VII 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— MISSOURI 
AND  IOWA 

How  we  came  by  Louisiana. — Jefferson,  Livingston  and 
Monroe. — Poverty  of  Napoleon. — President  Roosevelt's 
opinion. — Effect  of  the  Purchase. — Opinions  of  States- 
men in  1803. — How  Missouri  came  into  the  Union. — 
The  Compromise  proposed. — The  Compromise  adopted. 
The  North  get  a  line  and  the  South  win  a  State. — St. 
Louis  in  1800. — Predominance   of   Cathohcs. — Feeble 


Contents 


beginnings. — Abhorrence  of  Protestantism. — Lack  of 
popular  education. — Religious  progress. — Iowa,  its 
mixed  Territorial  history. — Scott's  treaty  with  Black 
Hawk. — Struggle  with  the  Indians. — Des  Moines  in 
1846. — President  Magoun. — Iowa's  first  missionary. — 
The  "Dubuque  Visitor"  calls  for  a  missionary. — Begin- 
nings at  Keokuk  and  Burlington. — Early  movements  of 
Baptists,  Methodists  and  Episcopalians. — Asa  Turner 
reaches  Iowa;  his  character. — Reuben  Gaylord  and 
Julius  A.  Reed  in  Iowa. — The  Iowa  Band;  its  origin, 
its  members;  farewell  services  at  Andover;  reaches 
Denmark;  its  members  are  ordained;  begin  work. — 
Influence  of  the  Band. — Dr.  Ephraim  Adams  and  Dr. 
William  Salter  the  only  survivors. — Testimony  as  to  the 
value  of  the  Band. — Its  influence  on  Congregationalism. 
— ^Testimony  of  Dr.  Harvey  Adams. — Results  in  Iowa.     87 


VIII 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— KANSAS  AND 
NEBRASKA 

Geographical  center  of  the  United  States. — The  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill. — Effect  of  its  passage. — Universal  ex- 
citement.— Squatter  sovereignty. — Border  ruffians. — 
Emigration  Companies  in  New  England. — Conflict  in 
Kansas. — John  Brown. — Victory  of  free  labor. — Be- 
ginning of  home  missions  at  Lawrence. — The  Andover 
Kansas  Band. — They  reach  Kansas. — Narrative  of  Dr. 
Richard  Cordley. — Conditions  in  Lawrence. — Quan- 
trell's  raid,  1863. — Results  of  home  missions.  Baptist, 
Congregational,  Methodist,  Presbyterian  and  Episco- 
pal.— Nebraska  made  a  Territory. — Fortunate  in  her 
neighbors. — Marvelous  growth  of  Omaha. — Arrival  of 
Reuben  Gaylord:  his  heroic  journey  from  Iowa;  his 
faith  and  patience. — Results  of  missionary  effort  in 
Nebraska. — Testimony  of  Dr.  Bross 104 


Contents 


IX 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— MINNESOTA 
AND   THE    DAKOTAS 

PAGE 

Territorial  history  of  Minnesota. — Statehood  and  area. — 
Wonderful  growth. — Attractions  for  settlers  — First 
Legislature. — Governor  Ramsey;  his  message. — Be- 
ginnings in  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis. — Legislative  re- 
port on  education. — Great  temperance  victory,  1852. — 
Early  missionaries,  Neil,  Whitney,  Seccombe  and  Hall. 
— Testimony  of  Dr.  L.  H.  Cobb. — Multiplicity  of  de- 
nominations.— End  of  the  "Plan  of  Union." — Mission- 
ary leaders.  Hall,  Cobb,  Montgomery,  Morley,  Hood, 
Lyon. — Fifty  years  of  home  missions  in  Minnesota. — 
Cost  and  results.— "The  Star  of  the  North."— The 
Dakotas  set  apart  as  a  Territory. — Rapid  growth. — 
Phenomenal  richness  of  soil. — Joseph  Ward. — His 
character;  his  choice  of  the  West. — His  influence  among 
the  people. — His  part  in  the  history  of  the  State. — 
Founder  of  Yankton  College. — Testimony  of  Dr.  Brad- 
ley and  Professor  Shaw. — Stewart  Sheldon. — The  Da- 
kota Band.— C.  W.  Shelton.— W.  H.  Thrall— H.  D. 
Wiard. — North  Dakota. — Henry  C.  Simmons. — Char- 
acter of  the  people. — Testimony  of  G.  J.  Powell 120 

X 

THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE— WYOMING, 
MONTANA,    IDAHO 

Wyoming  a  "Mountain  State." — The  Continental  Divide. — 
A  Territory  in  1863.— Statehood,  1890.— Growth  long 
delayed. — Indian  hostilities. — South  Pass  City. — Un- 
ion Pacific  Railroad  at  Cheyenne,  1868. — Beginning  of 
missionary  effort. — Rude  condition  of  society. — The 
Vigilance  Committee. — Dr.  J.  D.  Davis  and  Dr. 
Josiah  Strong  at  Cheyenne. — Clarendon  M.  Sanders. — 
Church  growth  embarrassed  by  distances. — Religious 
forces  of  the  State. — Idaho  not  a  part  of  the  Louisiana 


Contents 

PAGE 

Purchase.— Statehood  in  1890.— Error  in  the  official 
map  of  the  United  States.— Corrected  by  Honorable 
CorneUus  N.  Bliss.— Captain  Robert  Gray.— A  "Treas- 
ure State."  Early  society  chaotic. — "Left  wing  of 
Price's  army." — Political  corruption. — Large  propor- 
tion of  Mormons. — Efforts  to  break  their  power. — 
CathoUc  Missions. — Protestant  Missions  handicapped 
by  Catholicism  and  Mormonism. — Beginnings  at  Bois6. 
— Coeur  d'Alene.— Dr.  J.  D.  Kingsbury.— His  report.— 
Hopeful  beginning  at  Mullan. — Great  opportunity  for 
missionary  work. — Agricultural  Idaho. — Religious  prog- 
ress.— Statehood  in  Montana. — Early  settlers  from  the 
South. — Mingling  of  southern  and  eastern  elements  in 
Montana,  and  the  result. — Remedial  agencies  at  work. 
— Beginnings  at  Billings. — Conditions  in  Butte. — Re- 
ligious forces  in  the  State 138 

XI 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— COLORADO  AND 
OKLAHOMA 

Explorations  in  Colorado  by  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike.— 
Pike's  Peak. — Expedition  sent  out  by  the  Secretary  of 
War,  Calhoun. — Its  report. — "The  Great  American 
Desert."— Fremont's  exploration  in  1842. — Discovery 
of  Gold  in  1852. — Aurania. — False  reports  from  Pike's 
Peak  and  their  effect. — Growth  in  population. — Rapid 
after  1860. — "The  Centennial  State." — Beginnings  of 
missionary  work  at  Gregory  Diggings,  Central  City  and 
Black  Hawk. — Rev.  William  Crawford. — Denver  and 
its  churches. — Colorado  Springs,  Dr.  James  B.  Gregg. — 
Superintendent  Joseph  W.  Pickett. — His  wonderful 
zeal. — His  sagacity. — His  temptation. — His  tragic 
death. — Dr.  Charles  C.  Creegan  in  Colorado. — Dr.  Addi- 
son Blanchard. — Rev.  R.  T.  Cross. — Superintendents 
C.  M.  Sanders  and  Horace  Sanderson. — Examples  of 
success  in  the  city. — Cripple  Creek  and  its  missionary 
history. — Rev.  G.  W.  Ray. — Religious  forces  to-day. — 
The  fruits  of  home  missions. — Oklahoma  the  last  frag- 


Contents 


ment  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase. — Quaint  report  of  a 
Spanish  explorer. — How  it  returned  to  the  status  of 
"pubHc  lands." — Efforts  to  force  occupation. — De- 
feated by  United  States  troops. — Oklahoma  opened  by 
the  Government. — Story  of  the  occupation  by  Richard 
Harding  Davis. — Cherokee  Strip  opened. — Superinten- 
dent Parker's  description  of  the  scene. — Home  mission- 
aries go  in  with  the  crowd. — Begin  the  organization  of 
churches  at  once. — A  later  opening  in  1891.^ — Rapid 
development  of  churches  in  thirteen  years. — Oklahoma 
ready  for  Statehood 153 

XII 

THE  SOUTHERN  BELT 

Where  it  begins. — Settlement  of  Virginia  in  1607. — Captain 
John  Smith. — Mixed  elements  among  the  early  settlers. 
— Beginnings  in  Maryland. — Tolerant  spirit  of  Lord 
Baltimore  and  his  son. — The  Church  of  England. — The 
settlement  of  the  Carolinas. — Georgia  a  philanthropic 
enterprise. — The  Wesleys  and  George  Whitefield. — The 
middle  class  wanting  in  Southern  society. — Effect  of 
slavery. — Large  religious  element  at  the  South. — Home 
missionaries  withdraw  after  1856. — Great  disruption  of 
churches  on  account  of  slavery. — A  new  missionary 
problem  introduced  by  the  War. — Early  efforts  in  behalf 
of  the  blacks. — The  American  Missionary  Association; 
its  origin  and  spirit. — Its  work  at  the  south. — Lewis 
Tappan  and  Dr.  M.  E.  Strieby. — Baptist  Missions  at 
the  South. — Methodist  work  for  freedmen. — A  new 
South  since  the  War. — Work  in  Florida,  Texas  and 
Louisiana. — Remarkable  development  in  Georgia  and 
Alabama. — The  Midway  Church  and  its  work. — 
Atlanta. — The  new  spirit  of  the  South 173 


Contents 


XIII 

THE  PACIFIC  NORTHWEST— OREGON  AND 
WASHINGTON 

PAGE 

Early  history  of  Oregon. — Struggle  for  possession. — Dr. 
Marcus  Whitman. — His  appointment  as  missionary  of 
the  American  Board. — Whitman  and  Spaulding  start 
for  Oregon  with  their  brides. — How  they  kept  the 
Fourth  of  July  at  the  Great  South  Pass. — Success  of 
their  mission  to  the  Indians. — Why  Dr.  Whitman  took 
his  winter  journey  across  the  continent. — His  arrival  in 
Washington. — His  interviews  with  President  Tyler  and 
Daniel  Webster. — His  visit  to  Boston. — His  return  to 
Oregon  with  a  large  company. — Its  effect  on  the  future 
of  Oregon. — The  Whitman  massacre  and  what  led  to  it. 
— Rev.  George  H.  Atkinson  reaches  Oregon  by  the  way 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands  in  1848. — Population  and  pros- 
pects at  that  time. — Society  heterogeneous. — Re- 
ligious condition  crude. — Dr.  Atkinson's  valuable  ser- 
vice to  the  State. — His  knowledge  of  its  history  and 
resources. — His  address  before  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce in  New  York. — His  articles  in  the  "Oregonian." 
— Congregational  development  in  Oregon. — Dr.  Atkin- 
son's interest  in  education  and  his  valuable  service. — 
Dr.  Aaron  L.  Lindsley,  "Presbyterian  Statesman  of  the 
Northwest." — His  great  work  in  Oregon  and  Alaska. — 
Washington  set  off  from  Oregon  as  a  Territory  in  1853. 
— Its  rapid  settlement. — Present  population. — Church 
growths. — The  Yale  Washington  Band. — Their  personnel 
and  success. — Washington  to-day. — Testimony  of  Rev. 
A.  Judson  Bailey. — Religious  forces  in  the  State 193 

XIV 

THE  MEXICAN  CESSION— CALIFORNIA 

How  California  became  part  of  the  United  States. — Captain 
John  C.  Fremont. — Its  imperial  size. — Its  diversified 
climate. — Its  wonderful  products. — The  discovery  of 
gold  in   1849. — Effect  on  population. — A  new  home- 


Contents 

PAGE 

missionary  problem. — The  reign  of  terror  and  disorder. 
— Vigilance  Committees. — The  birth  of  law. — Ordina- 
tion of  missionaries  in  New  York  for  California  — J.  W. 
Douglas,  S.  H.  Willey  and  J.  H.  Warren. — Early  con- 
ditions.— Destructive  fires. — Unstable  population. — 
Congregational,  Presbyterian,  Baptist,  Methodist  and 
Episcopal  beginnings  at  San  Francisco. — The  "  Pacific. " 
— Professor  Royce  quoted. — Southern  California. — Rev. 
Alexander  Parker,  first  missionary  on  the  ground. — 
Rapid  growth  and  marvelous  changes  — Effect  of  the 
opening  of  California  on  the  churches  of  the  East. — Its 
strategic  importance  recognized. — Great  missionary 
enthusiasm. — Reaction  from  over  booming. — Mission- 
aries discouraged  by  unstable  conditions. — Faith  tried 
but  finally  triumphant. — The  harvest  after  fifty  years 
— The  growth  of  religious  forces 213 

XV 

THE  MEXICAN  CESSION— UTAH,  NEW  MEXICO 
AND  ARIZONA 

Utah,  fruit  of  the  Mexican  War. — Early  ignorance  of  the 
country. — Discovery  of  Great  Salt  Lake. — Brigham 
Young  and  Latter-Day  Saints  arrive. — Their  industry 
in  early  settlement. — The  origin  of  Mormonism. — 
Books  of  reference  — A  new  home-missionary  problem. 
— Mormonism  a  public  evil  to  be  actively  opposed. 
— Deseret  — Brigham  Young  appointed  Governor. — 
Demand  for  Christian  missionaries. — Rev.  Norman 
McLeod. — His  church. — Early  success. — Persecution. — 
Murder  of  King  Robinson. — The  mission  abandoned. — 
Revived  six  years  later. — Presbyterians  enter  Utah  — 
Their  success  with  churches  and  schools. — The  New 
West  Education  Commission  organized. — Results  after 
ten  years. — United  with  the  Education  Society  — What 
home  missions  has  accomplished  for  Utah. — Strange 
types  and  customs  in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona. — Their 
antiquity.  —  Relics  of  early  Spanish  possession. — 
Three  distinct  civilizations  in  New  Mexico — Pueblos, 


Contents 


PAGE' 


Spanish-Mexicans,  Americans. — Religious  nature  of  the 
New-Mexicans.  —  Testimony  of  missionaries.  —  Re- 
markable conversions.— The  success  of  Presbyterian 
missions. — Conditions  in  Arizona 228 

XVI 

ALASKA,  CUBA  AND  PORTO  RICO 

Russian  possession  of  Alaska.— Ceded  to  the  United  States. 
— Honorable  William  H.  Seward.— Value  of  Alaska  to 
the  United  States. — Home  missions  slow  to  enter;  the 
reason  why. — The  Greek  church  in  Alaska. — First  mis- 
sionaries from  the  United  States.— Work  at  Fort  Wran- 
gel,  Cape  Prince  of  Wales,  Douglas,  Nome  and  Valdez. 
Alaska  in  the  future. — Missionary  exploration  of  Cuba. 
—Dr.  J.  D.  Kingsbury  and  Rev.  E.  P.  Herrick  warmly 
welcomed. — Reaction  among  the  Cubans  against  the 
Catholic  Church. — Interest  in  Havana;  at  Matanzas; 
at  Bolondron;  at  Guanaboacoa. — Missions  established 
on  the  island. — Cooperation  and  comity. — Cuba  open 
to  the  Gospel  and  Christian  education. — Porto  Rico 
becomes  an  American  province. — Dr.  A.  F.  Beard  and 
Dr.  W.  H.  Ward  visit  the  island.— Population  and 
iUiteracy. — Great  destitution  of  schools  and  churches. — 
Beginning  of  work  by  the  American  Missionary  Associ- 
ation.— Presbyterian  efforts. — Cuba  and  Porto  Rico 
ideal  missionary  fields 248 

XVII 

HOME  MISSIONS  AND  THE  IMMIGRANT 
PROBLEM 

Immigration  between  1850  and  1880.— Relaxing  effect  on 
the  immigrant. — Loss  to  the  American  Catholic 
Church. — The  G  rman  element. — The  census  of  1900. — 
Per  cent,  of  foreign-bom  and  of  foreign  parentage. 
— Immigration  in  different  States. — In  large  cities. — 
Sources  of  immigration. — Distribution  of  foreign  ele- 
ments.— The  effects  upon  American  life. — Remedies  for 


Contents 

PAGE 

the  evil. — The  responsibiUty  of  home  missions. — 
Foreign  departments  of  the  Congregational  Home 
Missionary  Society. — Rev.  M.  W.  Montgomery's  visit 
to  Sweden. — His  discoveries  and  their  effect. — The 
Welsh  in  America. — Baptist  work  among  foreigners. — 
Presbyterian  interest  in  the  problem. — What  the  Re- 
formed Church  has  done. — The  appeal  of  the  city. — 
Responsibility  of  home  missions  for  the  congested 
elements  of  the  city 262 

XVIII 

NEW  ENGLAND  TO-DAY 

What  New  England  has  done  for  the  West. — Great  changes 
among  her  people. — Eaily  and  continuous  migrations 
westward. — The  effect  on  New  England. — Churches 
depleted  by  emigration. — Dark  pictures  of  religious 
destitution. — Remedial  agencies  at  work. — Testimony 
of  home-missionary  secretaries  in  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire  and  Massachusetts. — Is  New  England  on  the 
whole  decadent? — Testimony  to  the  contrary. — Ad- 
vancement of  education  among  the  people. — Increase 
of  spiritual  life  among  the  churches. — Young  men 
furnished  to  the  ministry. — Gains  in  church  member- 
ship in  proportion  to  the  population. — Denominational 
cooperation  in  Maine. — Missionary  work  for  foreigners 
throughout  New  England. — Prosperity  of  the  work. — 
Testimony  afforded  by  benevolent  contributions. — 
Continuous  gains  in  forty  years. — No  reason  for  des- 
pondence    283 

XIX 

WOMAN'S  PART 

"Boston  Female  Society  for  Missionary  Purposes"  in  1800. 
— "Female  Cent  Institution  of  N  w  Hampshire"  in 
1804. — Its  origin  and  remarkable  history. — Mrs.  Asa 
McFarland. — Presbyterian  women  organize. — What 
they  have  accomplished. — Baptist  women  unite  for 


Contents 

PAOB 

home  missions.— The  zeal  of  Congregational  women.— 
Missionary  boxes. — "Woman's  Home  Missionary  As- 
sociation" in  1880. — Its  scope  and  object. — What  it 
accomplished.  " State  Unions'  and  their  rapid  spread. 
Mrs.  H.  M.  Shelton,  Mrs.  H.  S-  Caswell,  Mi;s  D.  E. 
Emerson. — Fimds  contributed  by  Congregational  wom- 
en.— Their  helpful  cooperation. — Woman's  movement 
in  the  Reformed  Church;  in  the  Methodis  and  Episco- 
pal churches. — Woman's  wo  k  and  the  renaissance  of 
the  spiritual 303 

XX 

COOPERATIVE  AGENCIES 

The  chief  agency  the  Church. — Memorial  to  the  congress  of 
1777, — Action  of  Congress  in  1781  respecting  distribu- 
tion of  Bibles.— The  American  Bible  Society  organized 
1816. — Its  great  work  in  eighty-six  years. — American 
Tract  Society  formed  in  1825.— The  immense  volume  of 
its  publications. — The  American  Sunday-school  Union 
begins  in  1824. — What  it  has  done  for  the  nation. — 
Church  buildings  and  parsonages. — Action  of  the  Al- 
bany Convention  in  1852.— The  Congregational  Church 
Building  Society  — Its  relation  to  the  Home  Missionary 
Society. — Its  methods.— Baptis  church  erection. — 
Methodists  organize  for  church  bulding.— Presbyteri- 
ans and  their  work  in  church  building. — Denomination- 
al Sunday-school  work  of  Congregationalists  and  Pres- 
byterians.— The  Young  Men's  Christian  Association. — 
Its  origin  and  spread.— Its  blessed  ministry.— Other 
cooperative  agencies  — Christian  civilization  one  body 
having  many  members 31G 

XXI 

THE  FRUITS 

The  test  of  leaven.— The  \dtality  of  the  home-missionary 
idea. — More  than  thirty  national  home-missionary 
societies  organized. — One  hundred  and  forty  million  dol- 
lars invested. — Overwhelming  proof  of  the  \itaUty  of 


Contents 


the  home-missionary  seed. — The  debt  of  evangeUcal 
churches  to  home  missions. — Most  of  them  due  to 
home  missions. — Increase  of  evangelical  communicants 
in  proportion  to  the  population  — Voltaire's  prophecy 
and  its  failure. — Do  home  missions  pauperize  the 
churches? — Home  missions  a  paying  investment  finan- 
cially. —  Striking  testimony.  —  Incidenta  fruits.  — 
Christian  education  the  outgrowth  of  home  missions. — 
Christian  Colleges  founded  by  home  missionaries. — 
The  Congregational  Education  Society. — Home  mis- 
sions and  love  of  country  — Testimony  of  Dr.  R  S. 
Storrs. — High  ideals  more  influential  than  political 
parties. — Collateral  values  of  home  missions. — Indirect 
testimony  from  Southern  orators. — Home  missions  in 
the  Civil  War.— Patriotic  zeal  of  Christian  Colleges. — 
Home-missionary  literature. — "Our  Country"  by  Dr. 
Josiah  Strong. — Home  missions  and  their  relation  to 
foreign  missions. — Samuel  J.  Mills. — Formation  of  the 
American  Board. — Its  effect  upon  home  missions. — 
Its  dependence  upon  home-missionary  enterprise. — 
Opinions  of  broad-minded  men,  Prof.  Austin  Phelps, 
Dr.  R.  S  Storrs,  Marcus  Whitman  Montgomery, 
WiUiam  Kincaid,  Prof.  E.  A.  Park. — Faith  and  hope  in 
the  future  of  home  missions. — Conclusion 330 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS, 


Alexander  Huntington  Clapp,  D.D Frontispiece 

Paul  D.  Van  Cleef,  D.D Facing  page    30 

Map  showing  the  Territorial  Expansion  of  the  United 

States Facing  page    48 

Thomas  J.  Morgan,  LL.D '*  "  82 

Cyrus  Dickson,  D.D "  "  iio 

Michael  E.  Strieby,  D.D.,  LL.D "  "  186 

Henry  Kendall,  D.D "  "  220 

Alvi  Tabor  TwiNG,  D.D "  "  264 

John  P.  Durbin,  D.D «*  "  318 


LEAVENING   THE   NATION 
I 

THE    PREPARATION 

History  is  a  word  of  many  definitions,  but  in  the  last 
analysis  it  can  have  but  one  meaning.  All  history  is  the 
unfolding  of  a  divine  plan  looking  toward  the  recovery 
of  humanity,  and  a  kingdom  of  heaven  on  earth.  Either 
we  must  accept  this  or  surrender  our  faith  in  "Some 
power  outside  ourselves  that  makes  for  righteousness." 
With  this  for  a  master-key,  the  study  of  history  becomes 
the  most  fascinating  of  all  pursuits.  To  the  reverent 
student  it  is  more;  it  is  communion  with  the  very 
thoughts  of  God.  In  the  following  pages  attention  is  to 
be  fixed  upon  a  single  link  in  this  slowly  unfolding  chain, 
— the  link  of  Organized  American  Home  Missions.  But 
to  every  great  movement,  like  the  one  under  review, 
there  is  a  prehistoric  stage  of  no  little  interest  in  itself, 
and  of  yet  greater  value  for  its  connections.  "The  only 
true  knowledge  of  things,"  says  Archbishop  Leighton, 
"is  the  knowledge  of  their  causes."  Causes  are  apt  to 
be  remote  and  prehistoric. 

In  the  light  of  events  no  reasoning  mind  can  doubt 
that  the  western  hemisphere,  particularly  North  America, 
was  predestined,  concealed,  discovered,  and  reserved, 
to  become  the  seat  of  a  Protestant  Christian  nation. 

XI 


12  Leavening  the  Nation 

The  three  frail  ships  of  Columbus  were  headed  towards 
the  middle  Atlantic  coast,  and  in  a  few  days  would  have 
touched  that  shore,  when  a  flock  of  pigeons,  flying  over 
the  masts  in  a  southwesterly  direction,  led  the  naviga- 
tor to  change  his  course  towards  the  Caribbean  Sea. 
But  for  that  shifting  of  the  helm,  the  Atlantic  States 
might  be  occupied  to-day  by  the  descendants  of  Spanish 
Catholics.^  Landing  with  his  mutinous  crew  upon  the 
wooded  island  of  San  Salvador,  Columbus  planted  two 
standards — the  royal  flag  of  Leon  and  Castile,  and,  be- 
side it;  the  elder  banner  of  the  Cross ;  thus,  at  its  South- 
ern gateway,  dedicating  the  New  World  to  civil  rule  and 
to  the  higher  law  of  heaven. 

After  this  significant  opening,  the  events  of  the  next 
three  hundred  years  seem  more  like  a  parenthesis  in  the 
divine  plan  than  its  orderly  progress.  But  were  they 
a  parenthesis?  The  movement  of  history  more  often 
resembles  that  of  the  river  than  that  of  the  avalanche, — 
winding  about  in  many  capricious  courses,  often  turning 
back  upon  itself,  but  finding  its  way  to  the  ocean  at  last. 
America  was  the  discovery  of  Spain,  and,  by  every 
right,  to  Spain  belonged  the  first  attempt  at  conquest 
and  possession. 

The  story  of  that  endeavor,  its  "swift  and  vast"  suc- 
cesses, the  Catholic  possession  of  Florida,  New  Mexico 
and  California;  its  Indian  converts,  numbering,  in  the 
Floridas  alone,  some  thirty  thousand ;  the  self-denying 
labors  of  its  missionaries,  strangely  disfigured  by  oppres- 
sion and  horrible  cruelties,  inseparable  from  the  Romish 
methods  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries;  the 
marvelous  expansion  of  empire  and  Church,  until  they 

»G.  P.  Fisher,  "The  Colonial  Era,"  p.  15. 


The  Preparation  13 

embraced  the  greater  part  of  the  present  territory  of  the 
United  States;  the  culmination,  decUne,  and  final  col- 
lapse of  the  enterprise ;  all  these  are  among  the  common- 
places of  history — "a  strange  but  not  imparalleled  story 
of  attempted  cooperation  in  the  common  ser\dce  of  God 
and  Mammon  and  Moloch — of  endeavors  after  concord 
between  Christ  and  Belial."  ^  Glory,  greed,  and  un- 
scrupulous propagandism,  without  one  gleam  of  popular 
liberty,  were  the  ruling  motives  of  the  Spanish  invasion. 
The  inevitable  end  came  in  1850,  with  the  annexation  of 
CaHfornia  to  the  Union ;  or,  to  be  quite  exact,  then  came 
the  beginning  of  the  end ;  the  final  chapter  of  defeat  was 
to  be  written  in  the  issue  of  the  late  Spanish-American 
war. 

That  the  picture,  so  hastily  sketched,  is  no  Protestant 
caricature,  let  the  very  latest  Catholic  historian  of  the 
period  bear  witness.  "Our  survey,"  says  Bishop  O'Gor- 
man,^  "of  the  work  of  the  Spanish  Church  in  the  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States  is  at  an  end.  In  time,  it  ex- 
tended from  1520  to  1840  and  covers  therefore  over 
three  hundred  years.  In  space,  it  extended  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  south  of  the  thirty-eighth  degree 
of  latitude  and  covered  our  present  States  of  Florida, 
Alabama,  Texas,  New  Mexico,  Arizona,  and  California. 
Over  a  hundred  thousand  of  the  aborigines  were  brought 
to  the  knowledge  of  Christianity  and  introduced,  if  not 
into  the  palace,  at  least  into  the  antechamber  of  civiliza- 
tion. It  was  a  glorious  work,  and  the  recital  of  it  im- 
presses us  by  the  vastness  and  success  of  the  toil.  Yet 
as  we  look  around  to-day,  we  can  find  nothing  of  it  that 
remains.     Names  of  saints  in  melodious  Spanish  stand 

*  L.  W.  Bacon,  "American  Christianity,"  p.  7. 
'  Quoted  in  part  by  L.  W.  Bacon,  p.  15. 


14  Leavening  the  Nation 

out  from  maps  in  all  that  section  where  Spanish  monk 
trod,  toiled,  and  died.  A  few  thousand  Christian  In- 
dians, descendants  of  those  they  converted  and  civilized, 
still  survive  in  New  Mexico  and  Arizona,  and  that  is  all." 

There  is  pathos  in  the  story  itself,  and  in  the  lament  of 
the  historian;  but  there  is  still  more  of  instruction. 
Here  is  no  parenthesis  in  the  divine  plan,  but  an  object 
lesson  that  was  needed,  and  may  well  serve  for  the 
warning  and  the  despair  of  any  power  on  earth,  whether 
domestic  or  foreign,  that  shall  attempt  or  hope  to  domi- 
nate America  by  oppression  and  force.  America  was 
not  discovered  to  be  the  prey  of  monarch  or  hierarch, 
but  for  the  home  of  the  self-governed  and  the  free. 

But  the  great  lesson  needed  further  endorsement  and 
France  was  chosen  to  furnish  it.  It  is  an  impressive  fact 
that,  while  the  Spaniard  entered  America  by  the  south- 
ern gate,  through  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  the  French  invader 
was  directed  to  the  northern  door,  through  the  Gulf  of 
the  St.  Lawrence.  The  great  middle  coast  from  Maine 
to  Georgia  was  reserved  for  men  of  another  type  and  for 
a  more  hopeful  enterprise.  The  French  invasion,  hke 
the  Spanish,  was  for  glory,  gain,  and  Catholic  supremacy; 
but  its  methods  were  gentler  and  more  politic  than  those 
of  Spain.  In  its  dealings  with  the  natives,  it  substituted 
the  silken  glove  for  the  mailed  hand.  The  Spaniard 
oppressed  and  enslaved  the  Indians.  The  French  made 
them  allies  by  the  strong  ties  of  mutual  interest.  This 
wiser  policy  was,  in  large  measure,  the  secret  of  the 
rapid  and  wide-spread  extension  of  the  French  colonies, 
which,  within  thirty  years  from  the  founding  of  Quebec, 
had  been  pushed  westward  to  the  head  of  Lake  Superior, 
and  southward  through  the  whole  length  of  the  Missis- 
sippi valley,  embracing  the  vast  domain  of  Canada,  half 


The  Preparation  t$ 

of  Mexico,  half  of  Vermont,  more  than  half  of  New  York, 
and  a  large  part  of  Texas.  Spain  was  sullenly  retreating 
before  her  more  powerful  rival,  France  was  everywhere 
advancing,  and  there  seemed  httle  reason  to  doubt  that 
America  was  marked  out  to  become  an  enormous  French 
colony,  given  over  forever  to  old-world  monarchy  and 
Roman  CathoHcism. 

The  "  Seven  Years  War, "  and  the  treaty  that  resulted, 
changed  all  this  in  a  moment.  Great  Britain  became  by 
conquest  the  residuary  legatee  of  all  the  French  posses- 
sions in  America  "from  the  Arctic  ocean  to  the  Mexican 
gulf."  The  magnificent  and  almost  reahzed  dream  of 
French  empire  dissolved  like  a  morning  mist,  and,  thus 
again,  as  in  the  rout  of  Spain,  the  lesson  was  engraved 
anew  across  the  page  of  history  that  America  was  stiU  a 
problem  unsolved,  awaiting  the  will  of  God  and  the  set 
times  of  His  providence.^ 

Meanwhile,  the  real  founders  and  fathers  of  America 
were  being  born  and  trained  in  varied  schools  of  trial  and 
adversity.  Liberty  of  thought  and  will  and  conscience 
was  in  the  air  of  those  times,  both  in  Great  Britain  and 
on  the  Continent.  The  Separatists,  who  came  out  of  the 
Church  of  England  to  seek  a  freedom  they  could  not  find 
within  its  pale;  the  Puritans,  who  remained  in  the  church 
with  the  vain  hope  of  reforming  it  to  their  own  ideals, 
both  were  fighting  the  same  battle  under  different  ban- 
ners, and  with  slightly  different  weapons — the  battle  of 
a  free  conscience  against  ecclesiastical  tyranny.  To 
these  two  in  particular.  Separatists  and  Puritans,  and  to 
other  sufferers  for  conscience'  sake,  both  in  England  and 
on  the  Continent,  America  loomed  large  in  the  West  as 

'  For  fuller  treatment  of  Spanish  and  French  experiments  see 
L.  W.  Bacon,  "American  Christianity,"  p.  6-29. 


1 6  .  Leavening  the  Nation 

an  asylum  for  the  persecuted  and  dissatisfied;  and 
hence  it  happened  that  without  the  faintest  preconcert 
of  action,  with  Uttle  of  strategy  and  scant  thought  of 
worldly  gain,  with  no  ambition  for  glory  or  for  empire, 
but  with  a  passionate  longing  for  freedom  and  for  peace, 
the  third  invasion  of  America  began,  which  was  to 
change  the  face  of  the  world. 

Perhaps  no  other  nation  in  history,  unless  it  were  God's 
chosen  people,  was  ever  more  distinctly  religious  and 
missionary  in  the  character  of  its  early  settlers.  The 
official  charters  and  commissions  granted  by  foreign 
courts  to  these  emigrants  contain,  almost  without  ex- 
ception, an  explicit  recognition  of  the  divine  claim. 

"The  thing  is  of  God,"  said  the  London  Trading  Com- 
pany in  its  letter  patent  to  the  Plymouth  Pilgrims.  "  In 
the  name  of  God,  Amen,"  are  the  opening  words  of  the 
Mayflower  Compact,  and  the  full  spirit  and  meaning  of 
that  document  are  summed  up  in  the  phrase  that  follows: 
"  for  the  glory  of  God  and  the  advancement  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith."  The  signers  of  this  immortal  compact  paused 
on  the  threshold  of  their  great  enterprise,  "at  a  time," 
says  Bancroft,  "when  everything  demanded  haste,"  and 
kept  a  sabbath  of  prayer  and  praise  on  Clark's  Island. 
Governor  Bradford,  in  his  history  of  the  Plymouth  col- 
ony, declares  that  the  colonists  "had  a  great  hope  and 
inward  zeal  of  laying  some  good  foundation  for  propagat- 
ing and  advancing  the  Gospel  of  the  Kingdom  of  Christ, 
in  these  remote  parts  of  the  world,  yea,"  he  adds,  "though 
it  should  be  as  stepping  stones  unto  others."  In  this 
germinant  and  prophetic  sentence  lies  hidden  the  seed 
of  all  the  wonderful  missonary  history  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  So  overwhelming  indeed  were  the  religious 
aspects  of  the  Plymouth  Colony,  that  it  is  scarcely  re- 


The  Preparation  17 

membered,  to-day,  that  the  Pilgrims  were  agents  of  a 
trading  company,  whose  chief  interest  in  the  voyage  was 
the  fish  they  might  catch,  and  the  furs  they  might  cure 
for  export. 

Nor  was  New  England  the  only  spot  settled  by  Chris- 
tian emigrants  "for  the  glory  of  God."  The  Dutch  of 
New  York  were  children  of  the  Reformation,  and,  how- 
ever eager  for  trade,  brought  their  religion  with  them, 
and,  it  is  claimed,  set  up  their  first  church  in  New  Am- 
sterdam, a  full  year  before  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Pljnn- 
outh.  Whether  this  disputed  claim  of  a  church  can  be 
proved  or  not,  it  is  certain  they  had  religious  teachers 
and  supported  services  for  worship  and  instruction. 
New  Jersey  was  peopled  cliiefly  by  Presbyterians,  Scotch 
and  Irish.  Delaware,  another  of  the  original  colonies, 
was  known  as  New  Sweden,  because  settled  by  Christian 
Swedes,  sent  out  by  Gustavus  Adolphus,  their  Christian 
King,  who  declared  his  purpose  of  making  the  new  col- 
ony "a  blessing  to  the  common  man  as  well  as  to  the 
whole  Protestant  world."  The  very  name  of  William 
Penn  suggests  the  broad,  earnest,  and  Christian  hirnian- 
ity  in  which  the  beginnings  of  Pennsylvania  were  laid. 
Even  Virginia,  which  we  are  not  apt  to  regard  as  a  dis- 
tinctively religious  colony,  urged  upon  its  first  governor 
"the  using  of  all  possible  means  to  bring  over  the  natives 
to  a  love  of  civilization  and  to  a  love  of  God  and  of  His 
true  religion."  Maryland  began  as  a  Roman  Cathohc 
colony,  but  the  tolerant  spirit  of  Lord  Baltimore  and  his 
son  and  the  rapid  immigration  of  Episcopalians,  Presby- 
terians, and  Baptists  soon  transferred  the  political  con- 
trol into  Protestant  hands.  The  early  settlers  of  North 
and  South  Carolina  declared  themselves  to  be  actuated 
by  "a  laudable  zeal  for  the  propagation  of  the  gospel," 


1 8  Leavening  the  Nation 

while  Georgia,  the  last  of  the  colonies  to  be  settled,  was  a 
philanthropic  enterprise  from  the  start,  dominated  by 
godly  Moravians  from  Germany  and  Presbyterians  from 
the  highlands  of  Scotland. 

It  is  not  to  be  disputed,  and  it  would  be  folly  to  deny, 
that  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men  were  represented 
among  the  pioneers  of  America.  All  the  vices  of  human 
nature  were  there  and  in  full  play.  Ambition,  greed, 
bigotry,  cruelty,  persecution,  in  fact  the  good  and  the 
bad,  as  everywhere  else,  mingled  together,  until  the  com- 
posite result  made  it  hard  sometimes  to  predict  which 
would  survive,  or  whether  all  were  not  plunging  into 
common  ruin.  But  all  through  this  seething  chaos  of 
elements,  there  were  those  gleams  of  light  that  have  been 
described.  The  true  leaven  was  in  the  meal  and  the 
issue  was  safe.  A  soil  was  preparing  into  which  in  due 
time  the  seed  of  home  missions,  foreign  missions,  and 
Christian  education,  was  to  fall  and  from  which  a  harvest 
of  Christian  civilization  should  spring  to  make  glad  the 
aty  of  God. 

With  all  its  unwinnowed  chaff,  was  there  ever  in  his- 
tory such  a  sifting  of  precious  seed  for  the  planting  of  a 
nation! — Pilgrims  and  Puritans,  Moravians  and  Hugue- 
nots, Covenanters  and  Churchmen,  Presbyterians  and 
Baptists,  Lutherans  and  Quakers,  displaying  many  ban- 
ners, but  on  them  all  the  One  Name :  seeking  many  goods, 
but  holding  one  good  supreme — freedom  to  worship  God, 
as  the  Spirit  taught  and  as  conscience  interpreted.  Such 
were  our  prehistoric  home  missionaries.  Is  it  presump- 
tion to  claim  that,  by  the  will  of  God,  they  were  begot- 
ten and  born,  they  were  schooled  and  hardened,  they 
were  chosen,  guided  and  led,  they  were  ruled  and  over- 
ruled,to  be  the  fathers  and  founders  of  the  true  America? 


The  Preparation  19 

Mr.  Bancroft,  summing  up  the  story  of  the  Colonial 
period,  bears  this  testimony  which  may  well  close  our 
review  of  the  prehistoric  era: 

"Our  Fathers  were  not  only  Christians  but  almost 
unanimously  they  were  Protestants.  The  school  that 
bows  to  the  senses  as  the  sole  interpreter  of  truth,  had 
httle  share  in  colonizing  our  America.  The  colonists 
from  Maine  to  Carolina,  the  adventurous  companions  of 
Smith,  the  Puritan  felons  that  freighted  the  fleet  of 
Winthrop,  the  Quaker  outlaws  that  fled  from  jails  with 
a  Newgate  prisoner  as  their  sovereign, — all  had  faith  in 
God  and  in  the  soul." 


II 

NEW    ENGLAND    IN    SEVENTEEN    HUNDRED 
AND    NINETY-EIGHT 

The  year  named  is  chosen  only  because  it  marks  the 
beginning  of  organized  home  missions  in  America.  It  be- 
comes us  therefore  to  inquire  why  and  how  a  movement 
of  such  meaning  came  to  its  birth  when  and  where  it  did. 

New  England  was  now  a  hundred  and  eighty  years 
old;  "Separatist"  was  a  name  forgotten,  "Puritan" 
had  lost  its  technical  meaning.  John  Robinson  proved 
himself  a  true  prophet  when  he  assured  the  Pilgrims 
that  "the  unconformable  ministers  of  England"  would 
have  no  quarrel  with  them  when  both  met  in  the  wilder- 
ness of  the  New  World;  and  so  it  proved.  The  church 
at  Salem  was  organized  by  the  Puritans  on  strictly  Con- 
gregational lines,  and  the  church  of  Pljmiouth  was  there, 
by  its  delegate.  Governor  Bradford,  to  give  and  to  re- 
ceive the  right  hand  of  fellowship :  thenceforth  there  were 
no  more  Puritans  as  such,  no  more  Separatists  as  such, 
but  only  "  Congregationalists." 

From  the  date  of  that  auspicious  union  which  has  been 
called  "the  beginning  of  a  distinctly  American  Church 
history,"  *  the  Congregational  order,  continually  rein- 
forced by  the  rapid  emigration  of  Puritans  from  Eng- 
land, began  to  take  form  and  to  gather  momentum.  In 
ten  years  from  the  planting  of  the  Salem  church,  Con- 

'  Leonard  Bacon. 

20 


New  England  in  1798  21 

gregational  churches  in  New  England  numbered  over 
thirty.  Reliable  statistics  of  subsequent  growth  are 
almost  wholly  wanting,  but  from  the  twin  plantings  at 
Plymouth  and  Salem  we  know  that  Congregational 
churches  in  1798  had  come  to  number,  in  Massachusetts 
alone,  more  than  three  hundred,  and  in  New  Hampshire 
more  than  one  hundred.  Vermont  at  that  time  had 
seventy-five  churches,  made  up  largely  of  emigrants 
from  Connecticut;  and  Connecticut  from  the  beginning 
was  as  distinctly  Congregational,  with  certain  eccentrici- 
ties, as  Massachusetts  itself.  Rhode  Island  had  made 
but  little  progress  Congregationally. 

It  is  a  fact  therefore  to  be  noted  that  before  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  the  entire  Southern  and  much 
of  Northern  New  England  w^as  sown  with  Congregational 
churches.  No  such  growth  of  Church  power  had  been 
witnessed  in  any  other  part  of  the  New  World.  No 
ecclesiastical  establishment  bound  these  church  units 
together,  save  that  of  a  common  faith  and  polity.  Fel- 
lowship between  them,  however  cordial,  was  rendered 
difficult  by  distance  and  the  inconveniences  of  travel. 
The  well-worn  simile  of  "the  rope  of  sand,"  so  often  em- 
ployed by  critics  of  the  Congregational  system,  might 
have  applied  here  if  anywhere,  to  describe  the  hopeless 
disintegration  of  churches  having  no  bond  of  union  more 
tangible  than  that  of  moral  fellowship ;  l^ut  here  again  it 
failed.  Even  sand  may  be  fused  by  fire,  and  that  is  pre- 
cisely what  happened  during  the  last  half  of  the  eight- 
eenth century. 

"The  Great  Awakening,"  as  it  is  generally  known, 
reached  New  England  in  1740  with  the  first  \asit  of 
George  Whitefield.  He  was  then  a  young  man  of  twenty- 
five,  but  the  fame  of  his  eloquence  had  preceded  him. 


2  2  Leavening  the  Nation 

Churches  were  never  built  to  hold  such  multitudes  as 
thronged  to  hear  him.  On  Boston  Common  he  preached 
to  audiences  of  twenty  and  even  thirty  thousand.  On 
his  tour  through  other  sections  of  New  England  he 
preached  "one  hundred  and  seventy-five  times  in  public 
beside  exhorting  frequently  in  private."  The  way  for 
his  coming  and  success  had  been  to  some  extent  made 
ready  by  the  remarkable  revival  of  five  years  before, 
which,  beginning  at  Northampton,  had  spread  up  and 
down  the  river  from  the  Northern  to  the  Southern  limit 
of  Massachusetts,  and  extended  into  Connecticut.  The 
great  leader  of  the  movement  was  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  the  central  truth  of  his  preaching  was  Justification 
by  Faith,  the  same  doctrine  with  which  Luther,  long 
before,  had  split  the  Church  of  Rome.  Surprising  con- 
versions followed  his  sermons,  which  appealed  chiefly  to 
the  reason,  though  marked  with  intense  fervor  in  their 
delivery. 

Whitefield's  oratory  was  directed  chiefly  to  the  emo- 
tions. The  commonest  exhortations  on  his  lips  had 
singular  power  to  melt  the  hardest  men.  Immense 
numbers  followed  the  preacher  and  great  were  the  re- 
sults. '/Magistrates  and  civihans,  merchants  and  me- 
chanics, women,  children,  servants  and  negroes,  all  were 
religiously  affected  and  many  were  converted."  Spuri- 
ous excitements  there  were,  as  always  where  deep  feel- 
ing is  stirred.  The  youthful  orator  frequently  forgot 
himself  and  was  severely,  though  justly,  condemned  for 
censorious  speech  and  extravagance  of  manner,  and  his 
chief  helpers,  Tennent  and  Davenport,  particularly  the 
latter,  were  charged  with  un-Christian  attacks  upon  the 
Church  and  the  clergy.  But  when  the  excitement  was 
past  and  the  dust  of  the  campaign  had  settled,  it  was 


New  England  in  1798  23 

confessed  by  all,  except  confirmed  anti-revivalists,  that 
the  spiritual  life  of  the  Congregational  churches  of  New- 
England  had  experienced  a  resurrection. 

Volumes  have  been  written  in  denunciation  of  this 
Great  Awakening  which  have  called  out  other  volumes 
in  its  defence,  but  a  candid  and  conservative  historian 
of  a  later  period  thus  sums  up  the  result,  which  the 
judgment  of  the  present  day  confirms.  "It  was  pre- 
eminently a  work  of  God's  grace;  carried  on  with  great 
power  and  productive  of  vast  results.  Whether  we  re- 
gard the  deep  sleep  from  which  it  roused  the  churches 
throughout  the  land,  the  number  of  hopeful  converts 
(estimated  by  some  as  50,000  in  New  England)  with 
which  it  replenished  them,  or  the  new  life  it  breathed 
into  their  pastors  and  teachers,  we  are  forced  to  this 
conclusion.  .  ,  .  The  death-blow  which  it  gave  to  the 
'Half- Way  Covenant'  and  to  the  custom  of  admitting 
unconverted  members  into  the  Church  and  into  the  min- 
istry, the  boimds  which  it  set  to  the  growth  of  Armini- 
anism,  Pelagianism  and  Socinianism,  and  the  promi- 
nence which  the  doctrines  of  grace  have  ever  since  held 
in  the  system  of  New  England  theology,  these  are  among 
the  abiding  effects  of  that  revival.  Princeton  and  Dart- 
mouth Colleges  grew  indirectly  out  of  it;  as  also  the 
mission  of  David  Brainerd  to  the  heathen  and  the 
monthly  concert  of  prayer  for  the  world.  Even  the  dis- 
orders wliich  attended  it,  those  fanaticisms,  strifes,  and 
separations  which  gave  so  much  grief  to  its  friends  and 
disgust  to  its  enemies,  were  not  without  their  practical 
uses."  ^ 

The  early  fruits  of  the  Great  Awakening  were  a  sur- 

*  J.  S.  Clark,  "Congregational  Churches  in  Massachusetts,"  p. 
172. 


24  Leavening  the  Nation 

prise  and  disappointment.  A  rapid  religious  develop- 
ment throughout  New  England  was  expected,  and  might 
have  been  reasonably  predicted.  Good  men  went  still 
further  in  their  hope,  and  even  Edwards  cherished  the 
belief  that  the  scenes  of  the  great  revival  presaged  the 
dawn  of  the  Millennium.^  The  first  apparent  result, 
however,  was  an  exciting  and  extended  theological  con- 
troversy, in  which  Edwards  was  a  leader.  It  is  not 
within  the  scope  of  this  narrative  to  enter  into  that  strife, 
but  enough  to  say  that  it  resulted,  on  the  one  hand,  in 
the  birth  of  a  distinct  school  of  New  England  theology, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  aided  by  the  reaction  of  the 
Great  Awakening,  it  precipitated  the  Unitarian  defec- 
tion which  finally  drew  so  sharp  a  line  between  evangeli- 
cal and  unevangelical  Congregationalists.  The  spiritual 
benefits  of  the  Awakening  were  further  arrested  if  not 
wasted  by  seven  years  of  war  with  the  Mother  Country 
and  by  other  years  of  political  agitation  incident  to  the 
reorganization  of  the  government. 

It  is  httle  wonder  during  this  Revolutionary  period, 
when  even  the  weapons  of  theological  strife  were  ex- 
changed for  the  musket  and  sword,  that  church  life 
should  have  declined.  Yet,  more  than  one  historian 
has  noted,  not  always  with  the  same  clearness  of  Dr.  I;. 
W.  Bacon  ^  that  "  the  quickening  of  religious  feeling,  the 
deepening  of  religious  conviction,  the  clearing  and  defin- 
ing of  theological  opinions  that  were  incidental  to  the 
Great  Awakening,  were  a  preparation  for  more  than 
thirty  years  of  intense  political  and  warhke  agitation." 
It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  also  that  the  theological  refor- 
mation of  17G0-70  cleared  the  churches  of  abuses  that 

^  A.  E.  Dunning,  "Congregationalists  in  America,"  p.  261. 
^  "  History  of  American  Christianity,"  p.  181. 


New  England  in  1798  25 

would  have  blocked  forever  the  wheels  of  missionary 
progress,  had  they  remained,  and  that  the  war  with  all 
its  moral  evils,  including  the  importation  of  French 
infidelity,  opened  a  theater  of  home  missionary  en- 
deavor such  as  the  world  had  never  yet  seen,  where  the 
evangelistic  fervor  and  the  patriotic  zeal  which  have 
been  the  breath  and  blood  of  Home  Missions  from  the 
beginning  found  an  unrivaled  field  for  their  display. 
These  results  were  visibly  aided  near  the  close  of  the 
century  by  a  series  of  notable  revivals,  particularly  in 
Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  of  a  different  and  more 
quiet  type  from  those  of  1740.  They  proved  to  be  the 
gentle  rain  which  brought  to  life  many  buried  seed,  and 
which,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Griffin,  ''swept  from  New 
England  its  looseness  of  doctrine  and  laxity  of  disci- 
pline and  awakened  an  evangelical  pulse  in  every  vein  of 
the  American  Church." 

Before  proceeding  further  let  us  take  a  rapid  view  of 
conditions  of  the  country  in  1798.  Vermont  had  sepa- 
rated from  New  York;  Maine  was  still  a  part  of  Massa- 
chusetts. The  five  New  England  States  held  a  popula- 
tion of  1,300,000.  Congregational  churches  were  an 
overwhelming  majority,  in  nearly  every  state.  Other 
churches  were  on  the  ground,  but  as  yet  in  the  earliest 
stages  of  development.  In  Massachusetts  there  were 
three  Universalist  churches,  six  Quaker,  eleven  Episco- 
pahan,  sixty-eight  Baptist,  three  hundred  and  thirty 
Congregational.  Roman  Catholics  were  represented  in 
Boston  by  one  church,  which  was  the  only  one  in  the 
state.  In  other  portions  of  New  England  the  proportion 
of  churches  was  about  the  same. 

Outside  of  New  England,  the  eleven  remaining  States 
showed  a  population  of  about  4,000,000  making  the  en- 


26  Leavening  the  Nation 

tire  population  of  the  country  a  Httle  more  than  5,000,- 
000  souls.  The  western  boundary  of  the  United  States 
followed  the  course  of  the  Mississippi,  from  its  source 
nearly  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Of  territories  there  were 
four:  the  "Territory  Northwest  of  the  Ohio  River;" 
the  "Territory  of  Indiana;"  the  "Territory  South  of 
Tennessee;"  and  the  "Territory  of  Mississippi."  All 
were  practically  uninhabited,  having  a  population  of  one 
and  a  half  to  the  square  mile,  and  that  was  Indian.  The 
people  clustered  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  from 
Maine  to  Georgia,  and  the  center  of  population  was 
within  a  few  miles  of  the  spot  where  the  city  of  Wash- 
ington now  stands.  All  the  rest  of  America  as  we  know 
it  to-day  was  divided  about  equally  between  France  and 
Spain,  and  our  great  Western  empires  of  the  present 
lay  unnamed  and  unknown  in  the  unexplored  depths  of 
"New  Spain"  and  the  "Province  of  Louisiana." 

Under  these  conditions,  physical  and  spiritual,  the 
Home  Missionary  movement  began.  It  would  be  con- 
venient for  the  historian  if  such  movements  began 
sharply,  but  back  of  the  river  lie  the  hidden  springs,  and 
back  of  the  organized  movement  of  1798  was  a  series  of 
sporadic  efforts,  from  which  that  movement  took  final 
and  organized  form. 

As  early  as  1774  we  find  the  General  Association  of 
Connecticut  discussing  "the  state  of  settlements  now 
forming  to  the  Westward  and  Northwestward  of  us,  who 
are  destitute  of  the  preached  gospel,  many  of  whom  are 
our  brethren  emigrants  from  this  colony."  ^  Following 
the  discussion  steps  were  taken  to  send  two  missionaries 
to  their  relief,  the  men  were  even  designated  and  a  sub- 

•  E.  P.  Parker,  "Historical  Discourse"  on  the  One  Hundredth 
Anniversary  of  the  Connecticut  Society,  p.  7. 


New  England  in  1798  27 

scription  begun  for  their  support,  when  the  War  for  Inde- 
pendence arrested  the  movement.  Later  when  the  war 
issue  was  settled  the  missionary  issue  was  revived. 
"  Settlements  to  the  Westward  and  Northwestward  "  were 
multiplying,  and  "our  brethren  emigrants  from  this 
colony"  were  increasing.  Thus  for  ten  years,  previous 
to  1798,  home  missionary  work  had  come  to  be  attempted 
in  new  settlements  by  individual  churches,  but  only  in  a 
desultory  way.  Applications  sent  back  from  old  neigh- 
bors and  parishioners,  who  had  moved  westward,  and 
coming  always  with  great  earnestness,  could  not  be  dis- 
regarded, and  Connecticut  pastors  went  forth  again  and 
again  under  the  auspices  of  their  several  churches  or 
local  associations,  and  were  received  with  cordiality  and 
gratitude.* 

As  early  as  1793  nine  pastors  were  sent  out  by  the 
General  Association  of  the  State,  for  the  term  of  four 
months,  to  labor  in  the  new  settlements  of  Vermont  and 
New  York.  They  were  to  receive  four  dollars  and  a  half  a 
week,  and  four  dollars  more  for  the  supply  of  their  pul- 
pits. In  1794-96  a  larger  company  went  out  on  the 
same  terms,  and  among  them  some  of  the  wisest  and 
ablest  pastors  of  the  State.  In  all,  before  1798  twenty- 
two  ministers,  all  but  three  of  them  Connecticut  pastors, 
had  served  as  missionaries  in  Vermont,  New  Hampshire 
and  New  York,  and  the  cost  of  the  effort  had  been  less 
than  $4,000. 

But  these  "guerilla  methods,"  however  valuable  and 
however  honorable  to  the  churches  employing  them, 
were  only  preliminary  to  the  mustering  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Army.     A  sentiment  was  springing  up  in  all 

'  E.  P.  Parker,  "Historical  Discourse." 


28  Leavening  the  Nation 

the  churches  and  declaring  itself,  in  many  ways,  in  favor 
of  organic  action,  and  which  culminated  in  June,  1798,  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  Connecti- 
cut; and  so  the  river  of  organized  American  Home  Mis- 
sions began  its  course. 

Something  of  the  spirit  of  its  founders  speaks  in  the 
preamble  and  fom'th  article  of  their  Constitution: 

"The  general  Association  of  the  State  of  Connecticut, 
impressed  with  the  obligation  on  all  the  friends  of  Chris- 
tianity to  propagate  a  knowledge  of  its  gracious  and  holy 
doctrines,  also  encouraged  by  the  late  zealous  exertions 
for  this  end  in  sundry  Christian  bodies,  cannot  but  hope 
the  time  is  near  in  which  God  will  spread  His  truth 
through  the  earth.  They  also  consider  it  a  thing  of 
great  importance  that  some  charitable  assistance  be  ex- 
tended to  new  Christian  settlements  in  various  parts  of 
the  United  States.  The  salvation  of  these  souls  is  pre- 
cious. The  happiness  of  the  rising  generation,  and  the 
order  and  stability  of  civil  government  are  most  effec- 
tually advanced  by  the  diffusion  of  religious  and  moral 
sentiments,  through  the  preaching  of  the  gospel.  In 
deep  feeling  of  these  truths,  having  by  prayer  sought  the 
direction  of  God,  in  the  fear  of  His  great  name,  they  have 
adopted  the  following  Constitution  of  a  Missionary 
Society." 

"Article  4.  The  object  of  this  Society  shall  be  to 
Christianize  the  heathen  of  North  America,  and  to  sup- 
port and  promote  Christian  knowledge  in  the  new  settle- 
ments within  the  United  States." 

The  good  example  of  Connecticut  was  followed  one 
year  later  (1779)  by  Massachusetts,  when  the  "Massa- 
chusetts Missionary  Society"  was  formed  on  the  same 
broad  basis  as  that  of  Connecticut.     In  the  language  of 


New  England  in  1798  29 

its  charter,  its  object  was  "to  diffuse  the  gospel  among 
the  heathen  (Indians),  as  well  as  other  people,  in  the  re- 
mote parts  of  our  country  where  Christ  is  seldom  or 
never  preached." 

It  is  to  be  carefully  noted  that  these  societies,  while 
bearing  the  names  of  the  States  in  which  they  originated, 
and  supported  by  the  States  whose  names  they  bear, 
were  not  for  the  benefit  of  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts. There  is  no  more  striking  or  potential  fact  in 
early  home  missionary  history  than  this.  These  socie- 
ties were  local  only  in  name;  in  their  genius,  sympathies, 
and  methods,  they  were  genuinely  national.  Their 
charter  was  to  Christianize  the  heathen  of  North  Amer- 
ica and  to  promote  Christian  knowledge  in  the  new 
settlements  of  the  United  States. 

But  there  were  no  heathen  in  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut save  a  few  Indians,  and  both  commonwealths 
had  long  outgrown  the  character  of  "new  settlements." 
Hence  it  happened  that  of  the  more  than  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  subscribed  by  the  churches  of  Connec- 
ticut to  their  society,  in  the  first  thirty  years,  or  until  it 
turned  over  its  direct  missionary  work  to  the  American 
Home  Missionary  Society,  no  part  of  that  fund  was  ex- 
pended in  Connecticut,  except  for  the  few  Indians 
named;  and  of  its  nearly  two  hundred  missionaries,  not 
one  did  a  stroke  of  missionary  work  in  and  for  the 
State  which  commissioned  and  supported  them.  Into 
the  wilds  of  New  York  and  Ohio  they  went;  among 
the  heathen  of  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire  they 
labored;  the  new  settlements  of  Illinois  and  Indiana 
received  them;  they  penetrated  into  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  and  made  their  way  down  the  Mississippi  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico; — anywhere  and  everywhere  in  the 


30  Leavening  the  Nation 

United  States,  except  in  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts. 

Our  New  England  fathers  were  not  only  Christians, 
they  were  patriots  and  statesmen.  Their  eyes  were  not 
shut  to  the  moral  wastes  within  their  own  borders;  but 
they  had  a  keener  vision  for  a  deadlier  peril,  the  peril  of 
outside  barbarism.  They  seem  to  have  been  haunted 
with  a  prophetic  dread  of  new  States  growing  up  and 
coming  into  the  Union,  without  churches  and  schools, 
without  Christian  homes  and  a  Christian  sabbath. 
Hence  these  wise  men  of  the  East  inaugurated  their 
home-missionary  policy;  a  policy  which  was  embodied 
in  a  phrase  invented  by  them,  and  often  heard  on  their 
lips,  "the  welfare  of  the  regions  beyond."  Think  how 
much  a[quarter  of  a  million  dollars  might  have  done  for 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  put  into  schools  and 
churches !  Yet,  so  far  as  the  record  shows,  not  a  miserly 
Pharisee  among  them  was  heard  to  suggest  "Wherefore 
this  waste?  "  and  apparently  no  one  was  reminded  of 
that  convenient  Scripture  text,  or  pretext,  for  selfish- 
ness, as  it  is  often  misquoted,  "  If  any  provide  not  for  his 
own,  he  is  worse  than  an  infidel."  The  very  breadth  of 
their  missionary  conception  forbade  the  narrow  inter- 
pretation. New  York  was  their  own;  Vermont  and 
Ohio  were  their  own,  and  doubly  so  because  their  people 
were  Uke  sheep  in  the  wilderness,  without  shepherd  or 
fold. 

The  time  came,  both  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts, 
when  the  care  of  their  own  wastes  became  imperative, 
and  in  these  later  years  that  demand  has  steadily  grown. 
Home  missionary  funds  are  no  longer  sent  exclusively 
to  the  regions  beyond.  This  is  as  it  should  be.  But 
few  will  doubt  that  the  early  devotion  of  these  States  to 


Paul  D.  Van  Cleef,  D.D. 
Late  President  of  the  Board  of  Domestic  Missions  of  the  Reformed 
Church  and  a  member  of  that  Board  forty-seven  years  from  1855. 


New  England  in  1798  31 

the  new  settlements  made  them  aU  the  more  quick  to 
see  and  prompt  to  relieve  their  own  destitutions,  and 
fewer  still  will  deny  that  the  continued  plea  of  the  na- 
tional need  in  connection  with  that  of  the  State  has  been 
the  "longer  lever"  without  which,  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon 
was  fond  of  declaring,  the  State  alone  could  never  have 
lifted  its  own  load.  All  honor  to  the  humanity  of  these 
early  founders,  so  broad  and  unselfish;  to  their  wisdom, 
far-seeing  and  prophetic;  and  to  their  noble  example 
which,  for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  to  this  hour, 
has  been  the  guiding  star  of  home  missionary  policy. 

New  Hampshire  in  1801,  Maine  and  Vermont  in  1807, 
promptly  followed  the  lead  of  Connecticut  and  Massa- 
chusetts. Thus  within  ten  years  of  the  first  movement 
New  England  was  organized  in  every  part  for  home  mis- 
sions. The  three  States  last  named  were  animated  with 
the  same  broad  spirit  of  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts. 
If  they  attempted  less  for  the  new  settlements  to  the 
westward  than  their  elder  neighbors,  it  was  only  because 
they  were  themselves  new  settlements,  needing  more  help 
than  they  were  able  at  that  stage  to  bestow.  With 
their  growth  in  wealth  and  strength,  no  body  of  churches 
has  been  more  loyal  to  national  home  missions  than 
those  of  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  and  Maine. 

To  the  same  fruitful  decade  belongs  the  origin  of  Bap- 
tist home  missions  in  New  England.  Its  genesis  is  sin- 
gularly Uke  that  of  the  Congregational.  "The  Massa- 
chusetts Domestic  Missionary  Society,"  the  first  organi- 
zation of  its  kind  among  American  Baptists,  dates  from 
1802.  Its  object  as  defined  by  the  Constitution  was  "to 
furnish  occasional  preaching  and  to  promote  the  knowl- 
edge of  evangelistic  truth  in  the  new  settlements  of  these 
United  States,  or  fiu-ther,  if  circumstances  should  render 


32  Leavening  the  Nation 

it  proper."  The  organized  movement  was  preceded,  as 
in  the  case  of  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  Congre- 
gationalists,  by  sporadic  efforts  on  the  part  of  individual 
churches.  Indeed,  the  significant  feature  in  all  these 
early  organizations  is  that  they  were  natural  outgrowths 
of  an  evangehstic  spirit  within  the  churches,  and  in  no 
single  instance  were  they  forced  upon  the  churches  by 
outside  influences.  Baptist  Home  Missions,  like  Con- 
gregational, looked  beyond  the  place  of  its  birth,  send- 
ing its  missionaries  into  Maine,  Lower  Canada,  western 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Missouri. 

The  story  of  present-day  missions  in  New  England,  and 
of  events  which  have  made  it  home-missionary  ground, 
second  only  in  need  and  in  the  number  of  its  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Western  States  and  Territories,  belongs 
to  a  later  chapter  of  this  history.  Thus  far  we  have 
been  privileged  to  treat  of  New  England,  as  the  mother 
of  the  home-missionary  idea,  and  the  base  of  home-mis- 
sionary supplies,  both  of  money  and  of  men.  It  is  time 
to  transfer  the  reader  from  the  New  England  base  to  the 
field  and  to  the  front. 


m 

THE  EARLY  WEST 

Nothing  better  illustrates  the  vast  and  rapid  expan- 
sion of  America  during  the  nineteenth  century  than  the 
history  of  "sectional  nomenclature."  "The  West"  has 
had  a  new  definition  in  every  decade.  "To  the  west- 
ward," named  in  the  preamble  of  the  Connecticut  So- 
ciety, was  the  State  of  New  York,  and  "  northwestward  " 
was  Vermont.  Of  a  much  earlier  period,  it  is  related  on 
good  authority  that  a  surveyor  was  commissioned  in 
Massachusetts  to  lay  out  a  highroad  from  Cambridge 
towards  Albany,  as  far  as  the  public  good  required.  His 
road  came  to  an  end  twelve  miles  from  Boston  in  the 
town  of  Weston,  and  the  report  made  to  the  Govern- 
ment was,  that  the  work  had  been  pushed  into  the  wil- 
derness as  far  as  the  public  need  would  ever  require.  A 
good  many  pieces  have  been  added  to  that  road,  and  be- 
fore each  such  addition  "the  West"  has  steadily  re- 
treated. At  different  times  it  was  on  the  banks  of  the 
Charles,  the  Connecticut,  and  the  Hudson ;  on  the  shores 
of  the  Great  Lakes,  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  on  the  tops 
of  the  Rockies,  and  it  stopped  at  the  Pacific  only  be- 
cause it  could  go  no  farther.  Beyond  that  line  the  East 
began  again.  Nor  has  this  vague  conception  of  the 
West  been  always  due  to  the  provincial  shortsighted- 
ness of  New  England.  The  writer  remembers,  not 
twenty  years  ago,  visiting  a  primary  school  in  Southern 

33 


34  Leavening  the  Nation 

Wyoming,  from  whose  Avindows  the  peaks  of  the  Rockies 
were  visible.  To  his  question  addressed  to  the  children, 
how  many  of  them  were  born  in  Wyoming,  only  two 
hands  went  up.  To  the  further  question,  how  many  of 
them  would  like  to  grow  up  in  Wyoming  and  help  to 
make  it  a  grand  State,  not  a  hand  was  raised ;  and  when 
the  catechism  was  brought  to  a  close  with  the  bewildered 
inquiry,  "Where  then  are  you  going?"  with  a  united 
shout  they  replied  "  West." 

At  the  opening  of  the  century  the  northern  half  of 
New  York  and  its  western  third  were  practically  un- 
settled and  only  partly  explored.  The  rich  valleys  of  the 
eastern  and  central  portions  held  a  population  of  less 
than  600,000,  making  it  the  third  State  in  the  new 
Union,  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  only  exceeding  it. 

The  prevailing  church  in  Pennsylvania,  New  York, 
and  New  Jersey  at  this  time  was  Presbyterian.  Presby- 
terian emigration  from  the  old  world,  beginning  early, 
had  reached  a  significant  figure  before  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  From  1680  to  1690  large  numbers 
were  driven  by  persecution  from  Great  Britain,  Holland, 
Sweden,  Denmark,  Germany,  and  Moravia,  and  still 
later  in  the  same  century,  after  the  revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Nantes,  the  number  was  swelled  by  the  arrival 
of  Huguenots  from  France,  Belgium,  and  Switzerland. 
Many  of  these  exiles  made  their  homes  in  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  clustering  in  isolated  set- 
tlements, maintaining  religious  services,  but  as  yet  too 
scattered  and  weak  to  organize  presbyteries  or  churches. 
The  first  Presbyterian  church  was  gathered  in  Philadel- 
phia in  1690;  the  formation  of  "The  Old  Presbytery"  of 
Philadelphia  followed,  and  was  followed  in  turn  by  in- 
creased  emigration  from   Scotland   and  a  marked  in- 


The  Early  West  35 

crease  of  missionary  enthusiasm  among  the  ministry 
and  laity. 

Not  until  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  in  1789,  the 
General  Assembly  was  organized.  The  whole  church, 
at  that  time,  "consisted  of  one  hundred  and  seventy 
seven  ordained  ministers  and  one  hundred  and  eleven 
licentiates,  two  hundred  and  eighty-eight  in  all,  with  four 
hundred  and  nineteen  congregations  of  which  two  hun- 
dred and  four  were  vacant."  ^ 

Whether  the  home-missionary  idea  originated  west  of 
the  Hudson,  and  was  imported  into  New  England,  or 
starting  in  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  worked  its 
way  towards  Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  is  a  small 
matter  either  way,  by  the  side  of  the  fact  that  at  the 
same  moment  when  the  individual  churches  of  Southern 
New  England  were  sending  out  their  pastors  four  months 
at  a  time  to  comfort  the  new  settlements  with  the  gospel, 
the  first  act  of  the  General  Assembly,  just  organized,  was 
a  unanimous  resolve  "to  send  forth  missionaries  well 
qualified  to  be  employed  in.  mission  work  on  the  frontiers 
for  the  purpose  of  organizing  churches,  administering 
ordinances,  ordaining  Elders,  collecting  information 
concerning  the  state  of  rehgion  in  those  parts,  and  pre- 
paring the  best  means  of  estabhshing  a  gospel  ministry 
among  the  people." 

Meanwhile  the  Reformed  Church  of  America  had  not 
been  idle.  As  early  as  1786,  in  the  same  fruitful  decade 
that  witnessed  the  first  movements  of  the  Congrega- 
tionahsts  of  Connecticut  and  the  Presbyterians  of 
Pennsylvania  and  New  York,  the  Reformed  General 
Synod  appointed  a  committee  "to  devise  some  plan  for 

•"Historical  Sketch  of  Presbyterian  Board  of  Home  Missions, 
1802-1888." 


36  Leavening  the  Nation 

sending  the  gospel  to  the  destitute  locahties."  Contri- 
butions were  taken  up  in  all  the  churches,  enabling  min- 
isters and  licentiates  to  go  out  on  short  tours,  preaching 
and  organizing  churches.  Their  visits  and  labors  ex- 
tended beyond  New  York  to  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
Kentucky,  and  even  to  Canada.  The  plan,  thus  inau- 
gurated and  always  more  or  less  desultory  in  its  work- 
ing, continued  until  1822,  when  to  the  joy  of  all  con- 
cerned the ''Missionary  Society  of  the  Reformed  Dutch 
Church"  was  orcranized  to  embrace  both  domestic  and 
foreign  missions. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  and  gratefully  noted  that  the 
Congregationalists  of  New  England,  the  Presbyterians 
and  Reformed  Churches  of  the  middle  section,  and  the 
Baptists  of  Massachusetts,  by  a  simultaneous  impulse, 
born  of  the  Spirit,  started  to  do  the  same  thing  at  about 
the  same  time,  and,  so  far  as  the  record  shows,  with  no 
knowledge  of  each  other's  purpose,  certainly  with  no 
preconcerted  plan.  In  1802  the  General  Assembly  ap- 
pointed a  "Standing  Committee  of  Missions  to  prosecute 
the  work  in  its  name  and  to  nominate  missionaries  sub- 
ject to  the  confirmation  of  the  Assembly;"  and  it  is  this 
date,  1802,  and  the  appointment  of  this  committee  which 
are  accepted  by  the  Presbyterian  church,  as  the  time  and 
the  act  in  which  organized  Home  Missions,  on  the  part  of 
that  church,  began. 

One  year  earher,  however,  1801,  the  famous  "Plan  of 
Union"  between  Congregationalists  and  Presbyterians 
went  into  effect.  It  continued  for  fifty  years.  For  that 
reason  and  because  of  its  consequences,  and  of  the  min- 
gled praise  and  criticism  it  has  encountered,  we  shall  do 
well  to  look  into  its  origin  and  its  operation. 

The  Presbyterians  of  the  West  and  the  Congrega- 


The  Early  West  37 

tionalists  of  New  England  were  much  the  same  kind  of 
people.  In  worship  and  belief,  in  spirit  and  temper,  in 
everything  but  church  polity,  they  were  essentially  one. 
Both  were  of  Puritan  descent,  and  of  Calvinistic  theol- 
ogy. It  would  have  been  difficult  then,  even  as  now,  to 
distinguish  between  a  Presbyterian  sermon  and  a  Con- 
gregational sermon,  unless  by  a  slightly  differing  em- 
phasis on  certain  truths.  The  utmost  good  feeling  and 
Christian  fellowship  existed  between  them.  Presbyte- 
rians, settling  in  New  England,  dropped  into  Congrega- 
tional churches  as  naturally  as  Congregationalists  of  a 
later  day,  emigrating  westward,  found  themselves  at 
home  in  the  Presbyterian  fold.  Indeed,  during  the  clos- 
ing decade  of  the  century  something  hke  organic  union 
came  to  pass  between  the  General  Assembly  and  the 
General  Associations  of  New  England ;  delegates  were  ap- 
pointed from  each  to  the  other  and  these  delegates  were 
accorded  the  privilege  of  voting. 

The  opening  of  the  Missionary  Century  found  both  of 
these  churches,  hands  clasped,  struggling  with  the  same 
problem;  how  to  preempt,  or  at  least  to  overtake,  the 
new  and  rapidly  multiplying  settlements  with  the  means 
of  Christian  civilization.  No  rivalry  entered  into  the 
struggle  but  only  a  strong  sense  of  the  need  of  prompt, 
united,  action.  Love  of  humanity  and  love  of  country 
were  the  ruling  motive  of  both,  and  every  thought  of 
denominational  supremacy  was  buried  under  the  all- 
absorbing  issue  whether  the  New  America  should  be 
heathen  or  Christian. 

Under  such  conditions,  partly  inherited  and  partly 
created  by  the  times,  some  plan  of  union  between  Con- 
gregationalists and  Presbyterians  on  home-missionary 
ground  was  to  be  desired  and  became  inevitable.    The 


X 


38  Leavening  the  Nation 

particular  plan  adopted,  and  supposed  to  be  the  creation 
of  the  younger  Edwards,  was  fathered  by  the  General 
Association  of  Connecticut  and  proposed  by  that  body  to 
the  General  Assembly,  and  whatever  its  outcome,  good 
or  bad,  this  fact  concerning  its  origin  is  not  to  be  for- 
gotten. 

The  purpose  of  the  plan  was  to  establish  as  far  as  possi- 
ple  a  uniform  system  of  Church  government  for  Presby- 
terians and  Congregationalists  on  home-missionary 
ground.  The  terms,  by  mutual  agreement,  provided 
that  a  Congregational  church  with  a  Presbyterian  pastor 
and  a  Presbyterian  church  with  a  Congregational  pastor 
should  each  retain  its  own  polity,  while  the  pastor,  if  he 
came  into  disciphne,  should  be  tried  by  the  body  to 
which  he  belonged ;  or,  if  both  parties  could  not  agree  to 
this,  by  a  mutual  council,  composed  of  an  equal  number 
from  both  denominations.  Where  churches  were  alto- 
gether Congregational  or  Presbyterian  they  might  main- 
tain their  own  polity  without  reference  to  any  plan  of 
union.  ^ 

The  advantages  of  such  a  compact  in  new  settlements, 
where  the  people  were  few  and  more  or  less  divided  on 
denominational  Hnes,  are  easily  obvious.  They  would 
need  but  one  house  of  worship,  one  pastor,  one  creed,  one 
confession.  In  the  choice  and  support  of  ministers  and 
in  all  acts  of  worship  they  were  one;  while  in  all  ques- 
tions of  discipline  or  polity  they  were  two,  by  mutual 
agreement. 

Ideally,  the  scheme  was  wise,  economical.  Christian; 
both  parties  entered  into  it  with  entire  good  faith.  Per- 
haps no  compact  was  ever  made  with  a  more  honest 

*  A.  E.  Dunning,  "Congregationalists  in  America,"  p.  322. 


The  Early  West  39 

purpose  by  the  contracting  parties,  and  the  terms  of  the 
agreement  were  meant  to  be  absohitely  fair  and  impartial 
to  both.  Had  it  been  adopted  as  a  tentative  scheme  or 
temporary  expedient,  with  a  time  limit  of  ten,  or  even 
twenty,  years,  the  Plan  of  Union  would  be  eulogized 
to-day  as  a  triumph  of  Christian  comity,  worthy  of  the 
profound  insight  of  its  supposed  author. 

But,  for  several  reasons,  it  operated  in  the  end  less 
favorably  for  Congregationahsts  than  for  Presbyterians. 
"The  latter  were  nearer  to  the  scene  of  missionary  labor; 
their  denominational  spirit  was  more  assertive  than  that 
of  the  Congregationalism  of  the  day;  their  presbyteries 
were  rapidly  spread  over  the  missionary  districts  and  the 
natural  desire  for  fellowship,  where  the  points  of  separa- 
tion seemed  so  few,  led  Congregational  ministers  to 
accept  the  welcome  offered."  ^  Moreover,  strange  as  it 
may  appear  to  us  who  have  witnessed  the  marvelous 
development  of  the  West,  the  early  fathers  of  New  Eng- 
land had  only  the  faintest  conception  of  its  possibilities. 
To  them  the  Hudson  river  was  the  meridian  of  the  United 
States.  In  the  comprehensive  words  of  Professor 
Walker,  "These  framers  seemed  to  have  little  thought 
that  the  scanty  settlements  to  which  the  Plan  of  Union 
was  to  apply  would  grow  to  be  amongst  the  strongest 
American  communities,  and  that  what  was  well  enough 
as  a  compromise  arrangement  by  which  feeble  bands  of 
Christians  could  be  associated  on  the  frontier  would  have 
a  different  look  when  the  churches  formed  under  it  grew 
vigorous."  2  The  essential  weakness  of  the  Plan  of  Union, 
so  far  as  it  affected  CongregationaUsm,  is  here  revealed. 

'WiUiston  Walker,  "CongregationaUsts"     (American  Church 
History  Series),  p.  318. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  317. 


4©  Leavening  the  Nation 

It  was  a  plan  without  thought,  hope  or  faith  as  to  the 
future  of  America;  a  hitching  of  her  home-missionary 
wagon  to  a  stake  instead  of  a  star. 

Moreover,  these  disastrous  tendencies  were  promoted 
by  a  singular  delusion  on  the  part  of  the  New  England 
leaders  of  that  day,  Presbyterianism  had  never  proved 
indigenous  to  the  soil  east  of  the  Hudson,  and  by  an  illog- 
ical parity  of  reasoning,  Congregationalism  was  assumed 
to  be  equally  foreign  to  soil  west  of  that  river.  Hence  it 
was  not  uncommon  for  New  England  pastors  to  advise 
their  emigrating  members  "to  be  loyal  Presbyterians  at 
the  West."  Students  in  the  Seminary  were  taught  that 
"Congregationalism  is  a  river  rising  in  New  England 
and  emptying  itself  South  and  West  into  Presbyterian- 
ism." In  1829  the  directors  of  the  American  Education 
Society  recommended  all  young  ministers  going  west  to 
unite  with  Presbyteries  and  "not  hold  on  upon  Congre- 
gationalism;" and  it  was  publicly  acknowledged,  at  that 
time,  that  one  half  of  the  young  men  from  Andover  be- 
came Presbyterian  ministers.^ 

What  wonder,  with  the  wise  men  of  the  East  so 
blinded  to  the  possibilities  of  the  West,  church  leaders  so 
content  with  the  good  showing  of  New  England  Congre- 
gationalism, and  so  faithless  about  its  fitness  for  new 
communities,  what  wonder  that  the  Plan  of  Union,  from 
being  an  equitable  arrangement  between  two  equal  and 
fair-minded  partners,  became  the  instrument  of  enrich- 
ing one  of  them  at  the  cost  of  the  other!  It  is  certainly 
the  historical  fact  that  for  fifty  consecutive  years  the 
Congregationalists  of  New  England  deliberately  planned 
and    consistently    labored    to    promote    Presbyterian 

*  A.  E.  Dunning,  "Congregationalists  in  America,"  p.  327. 


The  Early  West  41 

churches  in  the  new  settlements,  and  that  their  money 
was  so  freely  poured  into  the  treasury  of  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  for  this  purpose  that  when  the  plan  was 
dissolved  at  Albany  in  1852  it  was  found  that  "  while 
two  thirds  of  the  beneficiary  churches  were  Presbyterian, 
two  thirds  of  the  money  was  coming  from  Congrega- 
tional sources;"  ^  which  led  a  conservative  historian 
(though,  needless  to  say,  an  ardent  Congregationalist) 
to  exclaim:  "We  have  been  well  called  the  Lord's  silly 
people."  ^ 

Nevertheless  the  Plan  of  Union  has  many  redeeming 
features.  It  was  a  generous  and  most  unworldly  arrange- 
ment, in  which  neither  party  took  an  advantage  which 
the  other  did  not  freely  concede.  Ecclesiastical  courtesy 
can  produce  few  finer  illustrations.  At  whatever  cost 
to  the  Congregational  order,  Puritan  principles,  which 
are  above  all  interests  of  church  polity,  were  so 
much  the  more  widely  disseminated;  and  if  it  be  true 
that  Congregationalism  is  poorer  by  two  thousand 
churches,  many  of  them  among  the  strongest  of  the 
land,  it  is  an  honorable  poverty,  which,  like  that  of  the 
Apostle,  has  made  many  rich. 

Western  New  York  and  Northern  and  Southeastern 
Ohio  were  the  first  points  of  attack  by  the  now  organized 
forces  of  the  Home  Missionary  Army.  Most  of  the  early 
settlers  of  New  York  were  from  New  England,  and  at 
least  four  organizations  were  united  in  supplying  their 
reUgious  needs — the  Connecticut,  Massachusetts  and 
New  Hampshire  societies,  and  the  General  Assembly  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  among  which  by  far  the 
largest  share  fell  to  the  Missionary  Society  of  Connecti- 

>  Dr.  J.  E.  Roy.  '  Dr.  J.  S.  Clark. 


42  Leavening  the  Nation 

cut.  Before  the  century  opened,  nineteen  churches,  all 
Congregational,  had  been  gathered  in  that  region, 
and  before  1815  sixty  more  of  the  same  order  had  been 
added.  During  the  same  period,  twenty-six  Presbyterian 
churches  had  been  established,  in  all  one  hundred  and 
five  Puritan  churches  in  less  than  twenty-five  years, 
all  of  them,  needless  to  say,  supported  by  home-mis- 
sionary funds.* 

But  in  Northern  Ohio  a  yet  more  significant  opening 
had  been  made.  A  large  region  skirting  Lake  Erie, 
known  as  the  "Western  Reserve,"  had  gained  the  name 
also  of  "New  Connecticut,"  because  of  the  preponder- 
ance of  Connecticut  settlers.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
century  the  tract  so  named  contained  about  fourteen 
hundred  inhabitants,  mostly  emigrants  from  Southern 
New  England.  In  1804  it  had  four  hundred  famihes; 
one  year  later  the  four  hundred  had  become  eleven  hun- 
dred, nearly  one  half  of  them  from  New  England.  In 
less  than  thirty  years,  ninety  churches  had  been  planted, 
all  of  them  by  home  missionaries  sent  out  and  supported 
by  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts.  David  Bacon, 
Joseph  Badger,  Thomas  Robbins,  and  others  not  less 
worthy,  are  names  that  Ohio  will  never  cease  to  honor, 
and  to  whose  heroic  labors  she  owes  not  a  little  of  her 
moral  strength  among  the  commonwealths  of  the  Union. 
In  one  of  their  early  reports,  the  trustees  of  the  Connec- 
ticut society  indulge  this  prophecy:  "The  time  is  not  far 
distant  when  the  religious  and  Uterary  institutions  of 
New  Connecticut  which  have  been  planted  and  fostered 
by  this  society  will  be  reckoned  among  the  brightest 
ornaments  and  purest  honors  of  the  parent  state"  ^ — a 

'  Congregational  Quarterly,  1859,  p.  153. 

*  E.  P.  Parker's  "Historical  Discourse,"  p.  21. 


The  Early  West  43 

prediction  so  grandly  fulfilled  that,  in  the  abundance  of 
the  harvest,  both  sower  and  reaper  may  share  the  honors 
and  rejoice  together. 

To  a  slightly  earlier  period  belongs  the  first  settlement 
of  Southeastern  Ohio  at  Marietta,  imder  the  lead  of 
Manasseh  Cutler,  a  Congregational  minister  of  Massa- 
chusetts. Though  the  colony  began  in  1788,  and  was 
supplied  with  regular  religious  services,  it  was  not  until 
1796,  two  years  before  the  Connecticut  Society  was 
formed,  that  the  first  church  was  organized.  Of  its 
thirty-two  charter  members,  all  but  one  had  been  mem- 
bers of  Congregational  churches  in  New  England.  Thus 
in  Northeastern  and  Southeastern  Ohio,  at  about  the 
same  time,  the  leaven  of  home  missions  had  been  hidden 
in  the  meal  and  great  were  to  be  the  results. 

To  sum  up  in  a  sentence  the  work  of  the  Missionary 
Society  of  Connecticut  at  the  end  of  the  thirty  years, 
two  hundred  missionaries  had  been  employed  whose 
joint  labors  were  equivalent  to  five  hundred  years  of 
ordinary  service  by  one  man,  and  four  hundred 
churches  had  been  established  in  the  new  settle- 
ments of  the  land.  With  what  wear  and  tear  of 
body,  with  what  sacrifice  of  comforts  in  the  wilder- 
ness, with  what  patience  of  hope  and  courage  of 
faith  and  labors  of  love,  no  words  could  ever  portray. 
Our  foreign  missionaries  receive  and  deserve  much  sym- 
pathy on  account  of  the  distance  of  their  fields  from 
home  and  friends,  and  the  hardships  of  travel  by  sea  and 
land;  but  it  may  be  questioned  if  the  remotest  station 
of  our  foreign  boards  is  not,  to-day,  more  accessible  than 
were  the  new  settlements  of  America  at  the  opening  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Not  a  mile  of  railroad  had 
been  built.    The  river,  the  stage-coach,  the  emigrant 


44  Leavening  the  Nation 

wagon,  and  the  saddle  were  the  only  conveniences  of 
travel,  and  to  these  tlie  missionary  added  footsore  and 
weary  tramps  from  settlement  to  settlement. 

It  is  not  easy,  in  these  days  of  rapid  transit,  to  con- 
ceive of  the  perils  and  the  hardships  of  locomotion  in 
those  early  times.  But  something  of  the  reality  is  re- 
flected in  the  touching  notes  read  from  the  pulpits  of 
New  England  every  Sabbath  day,  asking  the  prayers  of 
the  church  for  some  family,  or  group  of  families,  about 
starting  on  the  long  and  hazardous  journey  into  the  West. 
In  most  instances  they  were  bound  for  Western  New 
York  or  Northern  Ohio. 

The  need  of  home-missionary  effort  in  the  early  West, 
and  the  nature  of  the  work  done,  are  constantly  reflected 
in  the  reports  of  that  day.  Within  a  few  miles  of  New 
York  City,  on  the  western  bank  of  the  Hudson,  in  a 
community  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-nine  families, 
containing  more  than  a  thousand  souls,  four  hundred 
and  eighty-three  only  could  read  the  Scriptures.  "Among 
them  all,"  says  the  missionary,  "I  found  101  Bibles  and 
53  Testaments ;  the  nmnber  of  families  destitute  was  95, 
and  only  84  out  of  the  179  were  in  possession  of  the 
Scriptures.  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  distributing  285 
Bibles  and  of  hearing  some  heads  of  families  read  them, 
who,  a  few  months  ago,  were  not  able  to  spell  a  word. 
Now  according  to  their  ability  they  are  willing  and  do 
contribute  to  the  support  of  the  gospel  and  save  what 
they  give  (to  use  their  own  expression)  from  their  grog 
money." 

This  was  Eastern  New  York.  But  from  the  interior 
the  story  was  much  the  same.  "My  field  is  a  region  des- 
titute of  everything  that  could  encourage  an  attempt  to 
estabhsh  civil  or  religious  order.    The  Sabbath  is  spent 


The  Early  West  45 

in  hunting,  fishing,  neighborhood  visits,  and  such  hke; 
the  discharge  of  guns  is  to  be  heard  near  by  and  afar  off. 
After  preaching  one  Sabbath  a  few  individuals  were  con- 
sulted as  to  the  expediency  of  continuing.  The  thing 
appeared  almost  unwarrantable,  yet  they  resolved  to 
try.  The  result  is  a  church  of  twenty-eight  members, 
a  Sabbath-school  well  attended,  weekly  meetings,  and 
the  monthly  concert  of  prayer  for  the  conversion  of  the 
world." 

Again  and  again  reports  from  Western  New  York,  and 
its  infant  settlements,  are  brightened  by  such  tidings  as 
the  following:  "Fifty-six  souls  converted,  twenty-one  of 
these  heads  of  famihes,  and  the  remainder  young  persons 
of  both  sexes."  "Our  church  starting  with  fifteen  char- 
ter members  has  increased  to  100."  "Last  Sunday  the 
house  was  filled,  say  from  two  to  three  hundred,  though 
the  weather  was  bad.  The  burden  of  support  falls  heav- 
ily on  a  few.  People  with  an  income  of  $200  are  paying 
$30  for  the  privilege  of  the  gospel."  "The  whole  moral 
face  of  things  has  been  altered  in  this  village  within  two 
years."  In  the  midst  of  revival  scenes  one  missionary 
writes:  "I  rarely  retire  to  rest  before  midnight  and  rise 
again  at  5  or  6  in  the  morning.     It  is  a  delightful  work; 

about  100  have  been  added  to  the  church."     In  R 

triumphs  of  sovereign  grace  have  been  glorious;  about 
60  are  indulging  the  Christian  hope."  These  are  but 
samples. 

If  aU  the  records  of  destitution,  of  labors  and  successes, 
scattered  now  through  the  files  of  the  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  societies,  the  Missionary  Committee  of 
the  General  Assembly,  the  General  Synod,  and  the  Bap- 
tist Society  at  Boston,  and  covering  the  first  ten  years 
of  organized  home  missions,  could  be  gathered  up  and  the 


46  Leavening  the  Nation 

world  could  contain  them,  they  would  constitute  a 
"Book  of  the  Acts"  of  modern  apostles,  not  one  whit 
less  inspiring  than  the  journeys  of  Paul  or  the  triumphs 
of  Peter,  James,  and  John.  Indeed,  they  would  be  a 
continuation  of  the  same. 


IV 

THE    NORTHWEST    TERRITORY— ORDINANCE 

OF  1787 

Next  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  no  early  event  in  American 
history  is  more  significant  or  far-reaching  in  its  in- 
fluence than  the  famous  Ordinance  of  1787.  The  Decla- 
ration severed  connection  with  the  Mother  Country. 
The  Constitution  laid  the  basis  of  a  new  confederation. 
The  Ordinance  was  the  beginning  of  government  under 
the  Territorial  system.  It  applied  specifically  to  the 
"Territory  Northwest  of  the  Ohio  River,"  including  the 
present  States  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  IlUnois,  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin. 

No  one  man  has  a  clearer  claim  to  honor  as  the  pro- 
moter of  that  epoch-making  ordinance  than  Manasseh 
Cutler.  Born  in  Massachusetts,  by  turns  a  storekeeper, 
lawyer,  clergyman,  physician,  army-chaplain,  an  author 
of  astronomical,  botanical,  and  medical  treatises;  a 
pioneer,  a  State  legislator  and  member  of  Congress; 
honored  by  Washington  with  a  commission  as  Judge  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio,  which  he  declined,  and  round- 
ing out  his  busy  life  as  a  Congregational  pastor  in  Eastern 
Massachusetts,  for  the  better  part  of  seventy  years,  no 
finer  illustration  of  that  New  England  vigor  and  versa- 
tility, to  which  the  new  country  stands  so  deeply  in- 
debted, could  possibly  be  named. 

47 


48  Leavening  the  Nation 

It  was  as  a  member  of  the  Ohio  Company  of  1786  that, 
with  prodigious  energy,  he  raised  and  led  a  resolute  band 
into  Southeastern  Ohio,  after  obtaining  from  the  Na- 
tional Government  the  grant  of  a  million  acres  of  land  in 
the  Northwest  Territory,  and  the  passage  of  the  Ordi- 
nance of  1787.  Then  and  there  the  first  step  in  National 
expansion  was  taken  which  was  to  end  only  at  the  Pacific. 
It  is  not  too  much  to  claim  that  the  Ordinance  of  1787 
was  the  birth  of  American  Nationalism.  Yet  it  is 
doubtful  if  even  Manasseh  Cutler,  seer  as  he  was,  had 
more  than  the  dimmest  vision  of  the  future  of  the  North- 
west Territory. 

The  story  of  its  occupation  and  the  conditions  that 
governed  it,  though  at  present  they  can  only  be  outlined, 
go  far  to  explain  its  commanding  influence.  A  tract  of 
250,000  square  miles,  lying,  wedge-shaped,  between  the 
Great  Lakes  and  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  rivers,  sud- 
denly opened  its  wide  doors  and  invited  the  world  to 
enter.  The  immediate  government  was  Territorial  with 
certain  provisions  for  future  Statehood.  Slavery  was 
peremptorily  forbidden  by  the  Ordinance.  Vital  to  the 
future  as  this  prohibition  may  have  been,  there  was 
another  condition  "  at  least  equally  potential,"  namely, 
"the  guarantee  that  these  new  national  possessions 
should  not  be  governed  as  independent  provinces "  but 
should  be  treated  as  nascent  States.  Here  was  the 
initial  of  that  poUcy,  now  familiar  to  every  American 
schoolboy,  under  which  one  Territory  after  another  has 
cast  off  its  swaddling-bands,  and  made  good  its  claim 
to  full  Statehood,  until  the  raw  material  of  States  has 
become  practically  exhausted. 

The  early  settlement  of  this  great  domain  was  not 
without  resistance  on  the  part  of  fierce  Indian  tribes  en- 


The  Northwest  Territory  49 

couraged  by  Canadian  authorities  in  spite  of  our  treaty 
with  the  Mother  Country.  An  Indian  war  followed, 
continuing  with  more  or  less  vigor  down  to  1810,  when 
peaceful  possession  of  large  tracts  in  Ohio  and  Indiana 
was  secured  and  settlement  in  earnest  began. 

Three  distinct  streams  mark  the  era  of  occupation, 
each  of  which  contributed  powerfully  to  make  the  North- 
west Territory  what  it  is.  First  of  all.  New  England  and 
New  York  sent  numbers  of  their  people  into  Northern 
and  Southern  Ohio  and  even  over  into  the  eastern  edge  of 
Indiana.  They  were  met  here  by  a  new  stream  coming 
up  from  the  South,  not  of  the  planter-type,  but  from  the 
middle  and  lower  classes,  with  httle  thrift  and  less  am- 
bition, and  which,  by  the  lack  of  these  qualities,  has  left 
its  mark  on  Southern  Ilhnois  and  Southern  Indiana  to 
this  day.  But  meanwhile  the  attractions  of  the  more 
northern  regions  began  to  be  felt.  Their  earher  posses- 
sion had  been  delayed  by  the  hostility  of  Canada  and  the 
inconveniences  of  travel.  But  the  sudden  development 
of  navigation  on  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  digging  of  the 
Erie  Canal  opened  a  broad  way  from  New  York  and  New 
England  towards  Michigan  and  Wisconsin. 

Fortunately,  the  hardships  of  travel  were  still  enough 
to  deter  all  but  the  more  sturdy  and  adventurous  from 
joining  in  that  exodus.  Certainly  it  means  very  much, 
in  the  light  of  events,  that  the  northern  section  of  the 
Northwest  Territory,  including  Southern  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin,  Northern  Indiana  and  Illinois,  and  Northern 
and  Eastern  Ohio,  were  preempted  by  a  class  of  men 
and  women  inured  to  hardships,  enlightened  by  the  best 
traditions  of  New  England  and  New  York,  imbued  with 
patriotism,  and  behevers  in  the  future  of  the  American 


50  Leavening  the  Nation 

"Nation."     Here  was  splendid  material  for  the  "Key- 
stone of  the  American  Commonwealth."  ^ 

Just  at  this  point  enters  a  third  stream,  the  German 
current,  which  was  destined  to  affect  most  intimately  the 
future  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  Not  that  German 
immigration  to  America  then  began.  Far  from  it.  Before 
1700  German  refugees  in  considerable  numbers  began 
to  arrive,  settling  first  in  Pennsylvania.  Eighty  years 
later  there  was  a  second  flood  made  up  of  exiles  expa- 
triated by  persecution  and  war,  but  who  found  no  West, 
at  that  time,  to  attract  them.  But  after  the  opening  of 
the  Northwest  Territory  a  new  tide  from  Middle  Europe 
set  in  and,  this  time,  it  was  directed  cliiefly  to  the  region 
under  review  and  particularly  to  Wisconsin,  whose  State 
Constitution  had  made  specially  liberal  terms  to  for- 
eigners and  otherwise  sought  to  attract  them.  So  rapid 
indeed  was  German  immigration  into  Wisconsin  that 
the  dream  of  certain  enthusiasts  of  a  "German  State" 
among  our  commonwealths  was  a  favorite  one,  and 
might  have  been  attempted  but  for  the  rapid  increase  of 
emigration  from  New  York  and  New  England  which 
put  an  end  to  such  visions.  Had  America  in  1800  been 
given  the  choice  of  foreign  elements  to  settle  in  the  North- 
west, it  could  not  have  made  a  better  selection  than  the 
Germans.  They  have  prove(i  thrifty  and  conservative, 
peaceful  and  patriotic,  loyal  to  the  American  theory  of 
government  and  responsive  to  the  calls  of  public  duty  and 
danger.  If  some  of  their  social  habits  are  at  variance 
with  Puritan  ideals,  they  have  seldom  attacked  these, 
but  are  content  to  be  left  undisturbed  to  the  enjoyment 
of  their  own  national  customs. 

•  Professor  F.  J.  Turner. 


The  Northwest  Territory  $1 

The  reader  who  now  cares  to  open  a  map  of  the  United 
States  and  to  note  the  position  of  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory and  its  connections,  will  find  reason  to  agree  with 
Professor  Turner  in  the  opinion  already  quoted,  that  here 
is  the  "  Keystone  of  the  American  Commonwealth."  To 
the  north  a  chain  of  Great  Lakes  stretching  arms  in  every 
direction  until  they  touch  the  shores  of  eight  contiguous 
States,  and  open  a  watery  highway  from  the  heart  of  the 
nation  to  the  outside  world;  on  the  south  and  west  two 
noble  rivers,  offering  free  and  easy  navigation  for  thou- 
sands of  miles.  Into  the  magnificent  delta  thus  formed 
there  is  thrust  this  imperial  domain,  as  if  to  become  the 
economic  and  poUtical  center  of  the  Repubhc. 

For  many  years  it  has  been  a  vast  recruiting-ground 
for  the  gathering  of  those  forces  which  were  destined  to 
win  and  subdue  the  greater  and  then  imknown  West. 
Southward  also  it  has  had  a  mission  in  tempering  the  fire 
of  Southern  sentiment,  and  saving  border  States  to  the 
Union.  For  more  than  forty  years  the  center  of  popu- 
lation, as  determined  by  the  census,  has  been  located  in 
the  Northwest  Territory.  From  a  population  of  one  and 
a  half  to  the  square  mile,  in  1800,  it  has  reached  16,000,- 
000,  or  more  than  one  fifth  of  the  population  of  the  whole 
country.  Since  1860  it  has  been  the  center  of  American 
manufactures.  But  its  noblest  product  has  been  men 
and  women.  Of  the  seven  citizens  elected  to  the  presi- 
dency since  1860,  six  were  from  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory and  "the  seventh  from  the  kindi'ed  region  of  New 
York."  The  most  prominent  leaders  of  the  Gvil  War,  in 
State  and  field,  were  from  the  same  fruitful  region — 
Lincoln,  Grant,  Sherman,  Stanton,  Chase;  and  a  million 
soldiers  were  its  contribution  to  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
army. 


52  Leavening  the  Nation 

Here,  too,  the  final  battle  between  slaver}''  and  freedom 
began,  and  here,  also,  it  was  practically  settled.  In  the 
conflict  of  principles  which  preceded  the  shock  of  armies, 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  were  the  champions  of  the  two  con- 
tending parties,  and  the  issue  of  both  conflicts  was  really 
determined  when  Mr.  Lincoln  laid  down  the  self-evident 
proposition  that  "a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand;  no  government  can  endure  permanently,  half 
slave  and  half  free."  Take  away  from  our  national  arch 
this  "Keystone,"  with  its  Yankees  from  the  East,  its 
Hoosiers  from  the  South,  its  Teutons  from  Middle 
Europe,  its  wealth,  manufactiu-es  and  commerce,  and 
above  all  its  men  and  women,  with  what  they  have  done 
and  what  they  stand  for,  and  the  Union  would  crumble 
of  its  own  weight.     Would  there  be  any  Union? 

If  this  lesson  in  American  history  should  seem  to  any 
like  a  digression  from  the  orderly  course  of  our  narrative, 
it  is  only  apparently  so;  for  with  the  opening  of  the 
Northwest  Territory  Home  Missions  received  a  new 
birth.  It  was  then  that  its  friends  began  to  fuUy 
realize  its  meaning  and  the  grandeur  of  its  calling. 
Hence,  from  that  time  onward,  there  is  scarcely  a 
western  State  which  the  home  missionary  army  has  not 
entered  while  it  was  yet  a  Territory  and  usually  in  the 
first  and  feeblest  stage  of  its  settlement.  Chicago 
was  a  struggling  hamlet  when  Jeremiah  Porter 
preached  the  first  sermon  ever  heard  on  the  western 
shore  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  Milwaukee  was  a  vil- 
lage of  shanties  when  the  first  home  missionary  ap- 
peared on  the  ground.  It  was  the  opening  of  the 
Northwest  that  cured  the  provincial  shortsightedness  of 
New  England  and  gave  her  leaders  a  new  and  more  con- 
tinental view.    The  quaint  boimdaries  of  America  as 


The  Northwest  Territory  53 

described  at  a  later  period  would  have  been  well  appre- 
ciated even  on  Andover  Hill  at  that  time — "bounded  on 
the  North  by  the  Aurora  Borealis,  on  the  East  by  the 
rising  sun,  on  the  South  by  the  equator  and  on  the  West 
by  the  Day  of  Judgment"  The  churches  of  the  East 
awoke  quite  suddenly  to  the  fact  that  the  future  of 
America  was  not  to  be  determined  in  New  England, 
although  New  England  would  always  have  a  long  arm 
in  shaping  it;  but  that  America's  "judgment  day"  was 
in  the  West,  and  no  time  was  to  be  lost,  and  no  sacrifice 
to  be  comited  dear,  in  hurrying  forward  the  Christian 
forces  that  were  to  determine  that  future. 

President  Dwight  of  Yale  College  expressed  in  1816 
something  of  this  affectionate  sohcitude.  "Unfeeling 
indeed,"  said  Dr.  Dwight,  "must  we  be,  if  turning  our 
thoughts  to  the  West  did  not  awaken  a  multitude  of 
tender  recollections  and  anxieties  in  our  minds.  Our 
fathers  were  your  fathers;  our  parents  and  yours  grew 
up  together.  High  and  momentous  are  the  destinies  of 
your  settlements.  The  early  habits  of  a  people  are  hke 
the  first  roads  in  a  new  country  which  it  is  extremely 
difficult  to  alter  after  the  inhabitants  have  long  been 
accustomed  to  them,  and  have  built  their  houses  and 
shaped  their  farms  by  them.  Upon  the  decisions  of  a 
few  depend  the  interests  of  millions  in  after-times.  It 
devolves  upon  you  to  lay  out  the  streets  and  plant  the 
foundations  of  hterature  and  rehgion  and  to  give  shape 
to  the  institutions  of  society."  ^ 

The  tender  anxiety  that  breathes  in  every  fine  of  this 
address  has  been  a  growing  sentiment  for  the  past  eighty 
years.    The  possibihties,  the  needs,  and  the  perils  of  the 

*QHoted  by  E.  P.  Parker,  "Historical  Discourse,"  p.  20. 


S4  Leavening  the  Nation 

West  have  been  the  theme  of  couiitless  missionary  ad- 
dresses which  have  inspired  the  noblest  eloquence  of  the 
greatest  orators  of  the  Church,  and  it  is  a  theme  that 
never  grows  old.  With  the  opening  of  the  Northwest 
Territory,  this  new  birth  of  home  missionary  interest 
began.  It  crossed  the  Mississippi  with  a  new  race  of 
emigrants  bound  for  the  further  West;  it  has  swept 
through  the  Louisiana  Purchase  from  Missouri  to  the 
Canada  line,  and  over  the  Rockies  and  the  Sierras  to  the 
Pacific  coast.  It  forced  its  way  even  into  the  South  be- 
fore and  after  the  war.  A  movement  so  marked  and  so 
potential  more  than  justifies  this  general  review  of  the 
opening  of  the  Northwest  Territory,  and  requires  of  us 
now  a  more  detailed  history  of  its  development  by 
States. 


THE     NORTHWEST     TERRITORY— OHIO,     IN- 
DIANA, AND  ILLINOIS 

Home  missionary  beginnings  in  Ohio  have  been  briefly 
touched  upon  in  connection  with  New  York  because  of 
their  close  relations ;  but  they  deserve  a  fuller  notice,  as 
part  of  the  history  of  the  Northwest  Territory. 

Early  in  1788,  a  company  of  New  England  pioneers 
set  out  for  the  Muskingum,  headed  by  General  Putnam 
of  Revolutionary  fame.  A  little  later,  they  were  joined 
by  Dr.  Manasseh  Cutler,  another  leader  who  performed 
most  of  the  journey  in  a  sulky  in  less  than  thirty  days. 
Their  course  took  them  along  the  miUtary  road  across 
Pennsylvania  and  over  the  Alleghanies.  They  were 
mostly  soldiers,  going  West  to  draw  their  pay  for  mili- 
tary services,  in  the  shape  of  Ohio  lands.  Upon  reach- 
ing the  Youghiogheny  they  went  into  winter  quarters, 
and  waited  for  spring,  before  continuing  the  journey  by 
water.  Here  they  built  a  barge  and  christened  it  "The 
Mayflower."  It  was  the  second  of  its  name,  and  its 
builders  had  inherited  something  of  the  spirit  of  the 
Plymouth  pilgrims.  Reaching  Fort  Harmar  on  the  7th 
of  April,  1788,  they  landed,  forty-eight  persons  in  all,  and 
the  new  settlement  of  Ohio  began. 

It  was  a  propitious  beginning.  "Respect  for  law, 
reverence  toward  God,  love  of  country,  unshaken  faith 

55 


$6  Leavening  the  Nation 

in  their  own  abihty  to  do  whatever  they  set  their  hands 
to,  distinguished  one  and  all."  * 

Two  of  their  first  acts  were  to  stake  out  a  parsonage 
lot  and  to  set  apart  two  townships  for  a  University. 
Before  the  end  of  June  they  had  fixed  on  a  name  for  the 
new  city,  calling  it  Marietta  after  Marie  Antoinette  and 
in  gratitude  for  what  France  had  done  for  America  in 
the  late  war;  and  on  the  Fourth  of  July  they  celebrated 
Independence  with  a  procession,  speeches,  and  a  bar- 
becue. Their  first  county,  which  took  in  about  one  half 
of  the  present  State,  they  named  after  Washington. 

The  chief  peril  of  the  colony  came  from  the  Indians 
who  resented  the  advent  of  white  faces  on  their  ances- 
tral hunting-grounds,  and  it  required  seven  years  of 
fighting,  with  the  cost  of  many  valuable  lives,  to  secure 
a  treaty  with  the  natives,  by  which  about  two  thirds  of 
the  State  of  Ohio  was  thrown  open  for  peaceful  settle- 
ment. 

Meanwhile,  in  1796,  Moses  Cleaveland  and  a  company 
of  about  fifty  persons  reached  the  Western  Reserve  on 
the  shore  of  Lake  Erie.  Its  settlement,  however,  pro- 
ceeded slowly,  owing  to  the  continuing  title  of  Con- 
necticut, which  was  not  considered  as  good  as  that  of  the 
United  States.  Later,  Connecticut  surrendered  all 
claims  to  Western  lands,  and  the  settlement  of  the  Erie 
shore  began  in  earnest.  Thus  hopeful  beginnings  were 
made  in  Northeast  and  Southeast  Ohio.  Virginia  had 
reserved  certain  lands  between  the  Scioto  and  the  Little 
Miami,  known  as  the  "  Virginia[Mihtary  District,"  which 
was  being  settled  at  this  time  by  emigration  from  Ken- 
tucky and  Virginia.     Hence  it  happens  that  in  different 

»S.  A.  Drake,  "Making  of  the  Ohio  River  States,"  p.  155. 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  57 

quarters  of  the  State  there  began,  and  continues  to  this 
day,  a  marked  distinction  in  the  manners  and  customs 
of  the  people. 

At  the  end  of  ten  years  from  the  passage  of  the  Ordi- 
nance of  1787,  there  was  a  thin  fringe  of  villages  along 
the  north  bank  of  the  Ohio  with  a  white  population  of 
about  5,000,  and  these  were  the  elements  of  a  great  State 
that  was  to  be.  Now  began  to  be  realized  the  beneficent 
provisions  of  the  Ordinance.  No  slavery  could  enter, 
but  ''rehgion,  morality,  and  knowledge  being  essential 
to  good  government,  and  the  happiness  of  mankind"  was 
"forever"  to  be  encouraged.^  Nathan  Dane  and  Manas- 
seh  Cutler  built  better  than  they  knew  when  insisting 
upon  these  conditions,  for^no  State  ever  began  life  under 
a  grander  charter,  and,  to  their  honor,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  the  first  settlers  of  Ohio  beheved  in  and 
guarded  these  provisions,  incorporating  them,  with  the 
utmost  vigilance,  in  the  State  constitutions  of  1802  and 
1851. 

While  these  events  were  transpiring  in  Ohio,  two  vast 
counties  were  laid  out  to  the  west,  one  of  them,  Knox 
county,  covering  substantially  the  present  area  of  In- 
diana, and  the  other,  St.  Clair  county,  embracing  the 
present  territory  of  Illinois.  WiUiam  Henry  Harrison 
was  made  governor  of  Indiana  in  1800,  when  the  popu- 
lation had  risen  to  5,000,  about  equally  divided  east  and 
west  of  the  Wabash.  In  the  old  French  settlements 
slaves  were  held  in  violation  of  the  Ordinance,  and  deter- 
mined efforts  were  made  to  legaUze  the  institution.  But 
this  could  not  be  done  in  the  face  of  the  Ordinance,  and 
Congress  had  no  power  to  revoke  the  slavery  clause  of 

*  Language  of  the  Ordinance. 


58  Leavening  the  Nation 

that  instrument.  But  one  effect  of  the  conflict  was  to 
discourage  the  rapid  settlement  of  Indiana.  Slave- 
holders were  afraid  to  bring  their  human  property  into 
a  territory  where  it  would  become  legally  free,  and 
Northern  families,  who  abhorred  slavery,  were  equally 
timid  about  making  homes  where  the  hated  institution 
might  be  forced  upon  them  in  spite  of  law. 

But  a  yet  more  serious  barrier  to  early  growth  was  the 
bitter  hostility  of  Indian  tribes  led  by  Tecumseh,  a  chief 
of  influence.  Many  of  the  natives  were  disposed  to  yield 
peaceful  possession  to  the  colonists  and  to  sell  them  land 
for  a  song.  Tecumseh  held  that  such  transfers,  and  all 
treaties  made  by  separate  tribes  with  white  settlers, 
were  void.  The  United  States  government,  on  the  other 
hand,  held  them  to  be  binding;  the  result  was  war,  in 
which  Harrison  on  one  side  and  Tecumseh  on  the  other 
were  respective  leaders.  The  issue  came  to  decisive 
adjustment  in  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe  in  1811,  after 
which  settlement  rapidly  increased.  In  three  years  be- 
tween 1811  and  1814  the  population  advanced  from 
25,000  to  more  than  60,000  and  Indiana  was  seeking 
admission  to  the  Union  as  an  independent  State. 

More  fortunate  than  her  two  neighbors  on  the  east, 
Ilhnois,  in  her  early  days,  succeeded  in  escaping  the 
horrors  of  Indian  warfare;  although,  later  in  her  his- 
tory, she  was  to  suffer  in  the  Black  Hawk  Campaign. 
In  1810  she  had  12,000  white  inhabitants,  who  increased 
in  number  so  rapidly  that  eight  years  later  she  was 
ready  for  Statehood. 

At  that  time  two  thirds  of  the  State  was  wilderness. 
"There  was  a  trader  or  two  at  Peoria,  at  Chicago  just 
two,  whose  families  with  the  garrison,  newly  set  up  there, 
eagerly  looked  forward  to  the  arrival  of  the  government 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  59 

schooner,  that  once  a  year  brought  news  from  the  out- 
side world  and  supphes  for  the  fort."  ^  These  conditions 
improved  after  the  building  of  the  National  Road,  and 
the  opening  of  steam  navigation  on  Lake  Erie  and  the 
Ohio  River.  The  three  and  a  half  million  acres  of  Ilh- 
nois  land  voted  by  Congress  to  the  soldiers  of  1812, 
proved  an  alluring  bid  to  immigrants,  and  the  further 
grant  of  one  section  in  each  township  for  the  support  of 
schools,  and  two  per  cent  on  the  sales  of  public  lands  for 
internal  improvements,  insured  peculiar  advantages  to 
settlers  and  stimulated  their  coming. 

Before  tracing  further  the  home-missionary  develop- 
ment of  these  three  now  organized  States,  it  is  impor- 
tant to  take  note  of  the  radical  change  in  home-mis- 
sionary policy  which  took  place  in  1826,  and  which  was 
hastened,  chiefly,  by  the  demands  of  the  Northwest 
Territory. 

Hitherto,  there  had  been  no  organized  National  So- 
ciety. State  societies  had  been  doing  national  work,  each 
in  its  own  way.  But  several  missionary  organizations, 
working  independently,  had  resulted  in  an  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  men  and  money.  Some  sections  were  over- 
supplied  and  others  were  left  destitute.  Moreover,  the 
laborers  sometimes  came  into  conflict  with  each  other. 
Gradually  the  machinery  of  1798  and  1799  had  been  out- 
grown, on  the  one  hand,  by  the  increasing  demands  of  the 
West,  and,  on  the  other,  by  the  rising  tide  of  missionary 
zeal  at  the  East,  and  it  became  increasingly  evident  that 
some  more  economical  and  comprehensive  system  must 
be  devised.  The  germ  of  the  new  plan  developed  in 
1825. 

»  S.  A.  Drake,  "Making  of  the  Ohio  River  States,"  p.  248. 


6o  Leavening  the  Nation 

Nathaniel  Bouton  was  at  this  time  taking  a  post- 
graduate course  at  Andover.  In  company  vnth  Aaron 
Foster  of  the  senior  class  and  Hiram  Chamberlain,  also 
of  the  Seminary,  he  took  stage  at  Andover,  in  the  latter 
part  of  January,  1825,  to  attend  a  funeral  at  Newbury- 
port.  Conversation  turned  upon  the  growth  and  needs 
of  the  country,  and  to  the  mind  of  Mr.  Bouton  the  idea 
of  a  national  society  presented  itself  with  great  force. 
The  same  evening  Mr.  Bouton  and  Mr.  Chamberlain  con- 
tinued the  discussion  in  a  private  room  in  Dr.  Porter's 
house  on  Andover  Hill,  and  Mr.  Bouton,  holding  a  key 
in  his  hand  and  placing  it  high  on  the  wall,  exclaimed 
with  great  animation  and  emphasis,  "Why  not  strike  a 
high  key  at  once,  and  say  a  National  Domestic  Mission- 
ary Society?" 

A  few  weeks  later,  Aaron  Foster,  who  had  never  for- 
gotten the  stage-coach  discussion,  delivered  an  address 
before  the  Porter  Rhetorical  Society,  on  Domestic  Mis- 
sions, advocating  earnestly  the  necessity  of  a  National 
Society  for  sending  out  missionaries,  and  especially  for 
the  settlement  of  pastors  in  distinction  from  itinerant 
workers. 

A  few  days  later  the  Society  of  Inquiry,  which  up  to 
this  time  had  been  chiefly  interested  in  foreign  missions, 
held  a  special  meeting  at  which  John  Maltby,  of  the  senior 
class,  read  an  essay  on  the  "Necessity  of  increased  exer- 
tion to  promote  missions  in  our  Western  States."  The 
leaven  of  the  stage-coach  discussion  was  still  working. 
Said  Mr.  Maltby :  "  We  want  a  system  that  shall  be  one — 
one  in  purpose  and  one  in  action — a  system  aiming  not 
at  itinerant  missionaries  alone,  but  at  planting,  in  every 
little  connnunity  that  is  rising  up,  men  of  learning  and 
influence,  to  impress  their  character  upon  these  com- 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  6i 

munities — a  system,  in  short,  that  shall  gather  the  re- 
sources of  philanthropy,  patriotism,  and  Christian  sym- 
pathy throughout  our  country  into  one  vast  reservoir 
from  which  a  stream  shall  flow  to  Georgia  and  to  Louisi- 
ana, to  Missouri  and  to  Maine." 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  under  this  rising  interest 
at  Andover,  that  six  young  men  of  the  senior  class  should 
have  applied  at  this  time  for  ordination  as  home  mis- 
sionaries. The  ordaining  council  met  in  September, 
1825,  at  the  Old  South  Church,  Boston.  Distinguished 
pastors  from  several  New  England  States  were  present, 
and  before  they  separated,  at  an  informal  meeting  at  the 
home  of  Dr.  Wisner,  it  was  resolved  that  "the  formation 
of  a  National  Home  Missionary  Society  was  desirable 
and  practicable."  Three  months  later,  another  meet- 
ing was  held  at  Boston,  when  a  constitution  was  adopted 
"as  suitable  to  be  recommended"  to  a  meeting  there- 
after to  be  convened  for  the  purpose  of  organization. 
The  cause  of  this  delay  was  honorable  to  all  concerned. 

The  United  Domestic  Missionary  Society  of  New  York 
was  then  four  years  old,  representing,  for  the  most  part, 
the  Presbyterian  and  Reformed  churches.  No  rival 
organization  was  to  be  thought  of,  but  only  how  to  bring 
this  new  and  vigorous  society  of  New  York  into  union 
with  the  proposed  National  organization.  To  this  effect 
correspondence  was  opened.  The  New  York  Society 
welcomed  the  overture  of  the  Boston  brethren  wiih 
great  heartiness.  A  convention  was  called  to  meet  in 
New  York,  Wednesday,  May  10th,  to  organize  "an 
American  Home  Missionary  Society."  Thus,  for  the 
first  time,  the  name  which  afterwards  became  so  dear 
and  familiar  took  historical  form. 

In  that  convention  were  gathered  one  hundred  and 


62  Leavening  the  Nation 

twenty-six  ministers  and  laymen  from  thirteen  States 
of  the  Union.  They  were  Presbyterian,  Associate  Re- 
formed, Reformed,  and  Congregational;  yet  they  came 
together  with  no  sectarian  ends  to  gain  or  to  desire. 
The  Boston  constitution,  with  shght  amendments,  was 
adopted.  The  United  Domestic  Missionary  Society  of 
New  York  laid  down  its  name  and  identity,  and  became 
the  American  Home  Missionary  Society,  and,  on  the  12th 
of  May,  1826,  the  history  of  that  organization  began, 
with  the  hearty  good-will  and  perfect  fellowship  of  the 
four  constituent  denominations. 

How  wisely  those  early  foundations  were  laid  is 
proved  by  the  few  essential  changes  which  have  been 
foimd  necessary  in  the  lapse  of  time.  The  constitution 
of  1826  is,  substantially,  that  of  to-day.  One  by  one, 
three  of  the  original  partners  have  dropped  out,  the 
Associated  Reformed  Church  quite  early,  the  Presby- 
terian and  Reformed  churches  when  their  growth  and 
the  growing  needs  of  the  coimtry  demanded  the  organi- 
zation of  separate  boards  of  their  own.  But  the  union, 
while  it  lasted,  was  one  of  loving  and  hearty  fellowship, 
and  its  memory  is  still  blessed. 

Home  Missions  in  Ohio,  as  we  have  seen,  date  from  the 
very  beginning  of  the  centiu-y.  Joseph  Badger,  the 
pioneer  in  this  field,  appeared  on  the  Western  Reserve 
in  December,  1800,  and  his  first  church  was  organized  at 
Austinburg,  in  October  of  the  following  year.  Other 
missionaries  were  associated  with  him,  but  mostly  as 
itinerants,  for  three  or  four  months  at  a  time.  It  was 
not  until  Nathaniel  Bouton's  idea  of  a  "permanent  min- 
istry," under  "national  direction,"  became  operative, 
that  real  growth  began;  or,  more  exactly,  it  was  then 
that  a  certain  creeping  decay  was  arrested;  for,  when 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  63 

the  American  Home  Missionary  Society  was  organized 
in  1826,  one  half  of  the  churches  on  the  Reserve  con- 
tained less  than  twenty-five  members  each,  and  most  of 
them  were  without  a  permanent  minister.  In  the  next 
twenty-five  years,  two  hundred  churches  had  been 
planted  by  the  Society,  and  supphed,  not  by  itinerant 
missionaries,  but,  in  the  prophetic  words  of  Maltby,  by 
"men  of  learning  and  influence,"  who  were  impressing 
their  own  character  upon  the  growing  communities  of 
the  State. 

The  new  settlements  along  the  Ohio  River  had  suffered 
from  the  same  cause,  aggravated  however  by  emigra- 
tion of  a  not  very  high  or  hopeful  character  from  the 
South.  In  1828,  the  Society,  by  a  special  exploration, 
discovered  and  reported,  that  in  six  continuous  counties 
"no  minister  was  employed,  and  in  many  communities 
not  an  individual  professing  godliness  could  be  found." 
This  story  of  destitution  was  spread  abroad  among  the 
churches,  and  missionaries  were  sent  in  for  permanent 
and  regular  work.  The  change  that  followed  was  swift 
and  wonderful,  and  out  of  it  grew  schools,  churches,  and, 
not  the  least  in  its  beneficent  influence.  Marietta  College, 
—  all  the  direct  result  of  well  -  organized  missionary 
effort. 

But  not  in  the  Reserve  and  River  districts  alone  were 
these  things  true;  the  whole  State  was  cared  for.  Mis- 
sionaries increased  in  six  years  from  sixteen  to  eighty. 
Their  labors  were  supplemented  by  Baptist  and  Meth- 
odist workers  in  large  numbers,  and  probably  no  one 
State  of  the  Union  ever  received  a  more  generous  mis- 
sionary culture  than  Ohio,  between  1825  and  1850. 
"The  money  thus  devoted,"  says  one  of  its  early  pastors, 
"is  not  among  the  things  that  perish  with  the  using.     It 


64  Leavening  the  Nation 

is  still  doing  good  where  it  was  first  expended,  and 
wherever  the  influence  of  these  churches  is,  or  will  be, 
felt  throughout  the  world."  Not  the  least  of  the  harvest 
which  sprang  from  this  generous  sowing  is  found,  to-day, 
outside  of  the  State.  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kansas,  and  the 
Pacific  Coast  have  received  about  a  million  sons  of  Ohio 
and  their  descendants,  who  migrated  from  the  home- 
missionary  communities  of  the  Buckeye  State,  to  re- 
plant, in  the  younger  West,  the  moral  ideals  which  had 
elevated  their  own  life  and  character. 

The  progress  of  Indiana,  considering  all  its  drawbacks, 
has  not  been  less  striking  than  that  of  Ohio.  The  results 
are  poorer  for  several  reasons,  notably  the  mixed  ele- 
ments of  its  population.  Its  southern  counties  were 
peopled  early  by  emigrants  from  the  southern  side  of  the 
river,  and  they  were  not  distinguished  for  secular  or 
spiritual  energy.  The  State  on  the  north  was  less  acces- 
sible than  its  neighbors  because  of  its  very  limited  lake 
front  and  the  absence  of  good  harbors.  Hence  immi- 
gration became  "straggling  and  heterogeneous."  The 
result  was  the  establishment  of  society  upon  an  irre- 
ligious basis,  and  the  preoccupancy  of  the  ground  with 
thorns,  which  it  has  cost  a  long  and  laborious  hus- 
bandry to  subdue. 

In  1826,  in  a  population  of  250,000,  Indiana  had  only 
twelve  resident  Presbyterian  and  Congregational  minis- 
ters and  forty-five  languishing  churches.  In  ten  years, 
under  the  impulse  of  a  national  society,  the  mission- 
aries had  increased  to  thirty,  and  in  ten  years  more  to 
sixty.  By  home-missionary  pastors  the  college  at  Craw- 
fordsville  was  started,  and  from  their  ranks  four  pro- 
fessors and  most  of  its  trustees  were  dra'WTi.  Baptists 
and  Methodists,  South  and  North,  have  done  a  large 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  65 

missionary  work  in  the  State,  the  former  showing  about 
eight  hundred  churches,  and  the  latter  nearly  two  thou- 
sand. 

Northern  Congregationalism  has  proved  most  foreign 
to  the  soil,  and  for  many  years  encountered  special 
difficulties  from  a  hostile,  or  at  best  an  unsympathetic, 
Southern  sentiment.  It  was  fortunate  during  that 
period  in  having  for  a  leader  Dr.  Nathaniel  A.  Hyde,  of 
Indianapolis,  who  was  not  merely  the  pastor  of  Plym- 
outh Church,  but,  by  common  consent,  the  pastor  in 
general  of  the  State.  By  nature  he  was  a  concihator 
and  skilled  in  meeting  the  most  rabid  opposition  with 
"tact,  diplomacy,  and  good  nature,"  ^  yet  without  sacri- 
ficing liis  firmly  imbedded  Northern  convictions. 

Talcing  into  account  its  beginnings  and  early  environ- 
ment it  is  a  grateful  surprise  to  find  Indiana  standing 
alongside  of  Ohio  in  the  ratio  of  its  religious  forces  to  its 
population,  and  even  slightly  in  advance  of  Illinois. 
One  third  of  its  people  are  found  in  the  membership  of 
its  chiu-ches,  and  all  but  the  smallest  fraction  of  these 
have  been  created  by  home  missions,  and  without  such 
help  would  have  had  no  existence. 

First  glimpses  of  religious  destitutior  in  Illinois  come 
from  Mills  and  Shermerhom  in  1812.  On  their  way  to 
New  Orleans,  under  appointment  by  Massachusetts  and 
Cunnecticut,  "  they  learned  of  and  reported  "  a  population 
of  12,000  in  IlHnois  Territory,  and  no  Presbyterian  or  Con- 
gregational preacher  among  them,  five  Baptist  churches 
with  a  membership  of  120,  and  five  or  six  Methodist 
preachers  with  a  following  of  600  members.  Two  years 
later,  in  1814,  Mills  and  Smith  started  on  a  second  trip 

*  E.  D.  Curtis,  Home  Missionary,  vol.  74,  p.  117. 


66  Leavening  the  Nation 

through  the  Southwest,  taking  v/ith  them  Bibles  and 
tracts,  and  a  supply  of  French  testaments.  At  Shaw- 
neetown,  Illinois,  they  made  a  stop,  and  afterwards 
journeyed  across  country  to  Kaskaskia,  then  the  capital 
of  the  Territory.  Here,  in  a  population  of  about  100 
families,  they  fovmd  four  or  five  Bibles.^ 

The  report  of  this  visit  led  to  the  appointment  of 
Salmon  Giddings  as  a  missionary  to  St.  Louis,  from 
which  point  he  reached  out,  like  a  true  missionary,  and 
established  churches  at  eight  different  points  over  the 
river  in  lUinois.  In  1821,  Rev.  Gideon  Blackburn,  the 
able  and  devoted  Presbyterian  minister  at  Louisville, 
Kentucky,  came  over  and  conducted  an  important  re- 
vival at  Shoal  Creek,  with  marked  results.  It  was  in 
connection  with  this  visit  that  he  selected,  with  ad- 
mirable foresight,  a  large  tract  of  land  which  is  now  the 
site  of  Blackburn  University,  at  CarUnville. 

The  year  1824  was  the  period  of  IlUnois'  encounter 
with  the  slave  power.  In  spite  of  the  Ordinance,  the 
utmost  vigilance  of  the  people  was  required  to  prevent 
the  encroachments  of  slavery.  In  the  face  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise,  then  in  the  fourth  year  of  trial,  the 
time  was  thought  to  be  propitious  for  fixing  the  great 
evil  upon  the  constitution  of  IlUnois.  In  the  discussion 
and  disposal  of  that  issue,  the  scattered  missionaries  and 
their  young  churches  took  an  active  part;  and  no  man 
was  more  prominent,  as  a  leader,  than  John  M.  Peck,  a 
Baptist  missionary  sent  out  by  the  Massachusetts  (Bap- 
tist) Missionary  Society.  "His  plan  of  organizing  the 
counties,  by  a  central  committee  with  branches  in  every 
neighborhood,  was  carried  out  by  his  own  exertions  and 

*  J.  E.  Roy,  Home  Missionary,  vol.  42,  p.  181. 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  67 

personal  supervision,  and  was  greatly  instrumental  in 
saving  the  State."  ^  Freedom  won  by  a  majority  of 
2,000  votes  in  a  total  of  12,000,  and  home  missions, 
though  at  that  time  conducted  in  a  rather  desultory  way, 
was  largely  responsible  for  the  victory. 

The  real  development  of  Congregational  and  Presby- 
terian churches  in  Ilhnois  began  in  1826,  with  the  new 
National  Society.  Yet,  of  its  130  missionaries,  only  two, 
at  that  time,  were  located  in  Illinois,  E.  G.  Howe  and 
John  M.  Elhs.  But  it  was  the  beginning  of  organized 
progress,  and  in  that  was  its  promise  and  hope.  In  ten 
years  the  two  had  increased  to  thirty-two,  and  in  ten 
years  more  to  ninety-two.  They  were  not  itinerants 
but  pastors  of  learning  and  influence,  identified  with  the 
lives  and  interests  of  the  people. 

The  first  sermon  ever  heard  in  Chicago,  then  Fort 
Dearborn,  was  preached  in  the  carpenter's  shop  of  the 
fort,  by  Jeremiah  Porter,  in  1833,  from  the  prophetic 
text,  "Herein  is  my  Father  glorified  that  ye  bear  much 
fruit."  The  entire  population,  Indian,  French,  and 
American,  did  not  exceed  300;  yet,  in  three  months 
from  Mr.  Porter's  first  service,  he  organized  the  first 
church  of  Chicago,  with  twenty-seven  members.  Their 
first  house  of  worship  cost  S600,  and  was  dedicated  in 
January,  1834,  with  the  mercury  29°  below  zero.  In 
eighteen  months,  the  church  came  to  self-support. 

This  venerable  and  beloved  pioneer  lived  to  greet  the 
Columbian  Exposition.  To  no  other  man  in  the  world 
could  that  event,  with  its  brilliant  throngs  and  its  mar- 
velous products  of  human  achievement,  have  had  the 
same  personal  interest  as  to  Dr.   Porter.     From  the 

'  J.  E.  Roy,  Home  Missionary,  vol.  42,  p.  184. 


68  Leavening  the  Nation 

White  City  of  1892  to  rude  Fort  Dearborn  and  its  car- 
penter's shop, — what  a  retrospect  for  the  memory  of  one 
man !  He  passed  away  in  1893,  at  the  ripe  age  of  ninety, 
and  at  his  burial  in  Beloit,  his  pastor,  Dr.  Hamhn, 
preached  from  the  text  of  Mr.  Porter's  first  sermon  at 
Chicago,  "  Herein  is  my  Father  glorified  that  ye  bear 
much  fruit."  Few  men  have  personally  witnessed 
so  much  fruit  from  so  humble  a  seed,  and  fewer 
still  have  had  a  more  honorable  part  in  so  rich  a 
harvest. 

The  narrative  has  carried  us  a  little  in  advance  of  one 
event  which,  more  than  any  other,  happily  influenced 
the  religious  and  educational  development  of  the  State. 
The  "Illinois  Band"  was  the  first  of  its  class.  It  fur- 
nished a  model,  in  later  years,  for  the  Kansas,  Iowa, 
Dakota,  and  Washington  bands,  and,  because  it  marks 
a  peculiar  form  of  missionary  effort,  and  was  the  first  of 
its  kind,  it  deserves  a  more  extended  notice. 

Dr.  Joseph  E.  Roy,  for  many  years  field  secretary  of 
the  American  Home  Missionary  Society,  and  at  present 
district  secretary  of  the  American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion at  Chicago,  has  told  the  story  of  the  Illinois  Band. 
His  opportunities  for  accurate  information  are  so  rare, 
and  his  account  is  so  carefully  condensed,  that  we  prefer 
to  transcribe  it  almost  without  change. 

"Here  now,"  says  Dr.  Roy,  "comes  in  the  wonderful, 
providential  coincidence,  in  behalf  of  Christianization  in 
Illinois.  Mr.  Ellis,  while  living  in  Kaskaskia,  had  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  founding  a  Christian  seminary.  It 
had  been  located  at  Jacksonville,  whither  he  had  re- 
moved to  take  charge  of  the  church  in  that  place  and  to 
help  in  the  seminary.  A  half-quarter  section  had  been 
secured  for  a  site,  and  a  subscription  of  $3,000  had  been 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  69 

raised.  In  his  report  to  the  Society,  published  in  the 
Home  Missionary  for  December,  1828,  Mr.  Ellis  made  a 
brief  statement  of  the  seminary  project,  and  appealed 
to  the  East  for  aid  and  for  missionaries. 

''Meantime,  God  had  been  preparing,  at  a  distant  place, 
another  train  of  causes  to  fit  into  this  occasion.  Before 
the  Society  of  Inquiry  in  the  theological  department  of 
Yale  College,  Theron  Baldwin  had  read  an  essay  upon 
Christian  Evangelism.  An  association  was  proposed 
whose  members  should  go  as  a  band  to  some  newly  open- 
ing part  of  the  country,  to  plant  churches  and  an  insti- 
tution of  Christian  learning.  Just  then  Mr.  Ellis's  re- 
port came  to  hand.  It  fired  enthusiasm.  Mr.  ElHs 
was  written  to  for  more  information.  Early  in  1829, 
seven  young  men  signed  their  names  in  solemn  pledge, 
as  the  Illinois  Association,  to  go  out  to  that  State,  of 
which  there  was  less  known  then  than  we  now  (1869) 
know  of  Washington  Territory.  Their  names  were 
Theron  Baldwin,  Mason  Grosvenor,  John  F.  Brooks, 
Elisha  Jenney,  William  liirby,  Asa  Turner,  and  J.  M. 
Sturtevant.  In  consultation  with  the  professors  at  Yale 
they  concerted  a  plan  for  putting  the  seminary  upon  a 
regular  college  basis,  and  for  raising  at  the  East,  in  be- 
half of  the  scheme,  $10,000,  which  after  Mr.  Ellis  had 
gone  on  was  soon  secured. 

"President  Sturtevant,  in  his  quarter-century  address, 
says:  'Great  assistance  was  derived,  in  the  prosecution 
of  this  work,  from  the  cooperation  of  the  American  Home 
Missionary  Society,  especially  from  their  able  and  effi- 
cient secretary,  Rev.  Absalom  Peters,  and  the  lamented 
Rev.  Charles  Hall.  These  gentlemen,  together  with 
many  other  active  and  influential  friends  of  the  Society, 
were  consulted  in  the  very  outset  by  the  yoimg  men,  and 


70  Leavening  the  Nation 

the  enterprise  received  from  that  quarter  warm  sympa- 
thy and  cordial  support.' 

"  Soon  were  added  to  this  band  names  of  William 
Carter,  Albert  Hale,  Flavel  Bascom,  Romulus  Barnes, 
and  Lucian  Farnham.  Every  one  of  these  twelve 
apostles,  except  Grosvenor,  upon  the  completion  of  their 
seminary  coiuse  came  on  to  Illinois.  All  came  under 
the  cominission  of  the  Society,  with  outfit  furnished, 
and  the  current  missionary  salary  of  $400  pledged.  It 
is  also  to  be  said  that  this  Illinois  Band  came  out  four- 
teen years  before  the  Iowa  Band,  and,  so  leading  the 
way,  had  shown  how  to  do  the  thing. 

"In  1829  Messrs.  Baldwin  and  Sturtevant,  designated 
in  their  commission  to  'the  State  of  lUinois,'  came  on  and 
set  up  the  college,  Mr.  Sturtevant  becoming  an  instruc- 
tor, and  Mr.  Baldwin  locating  at  Vandalia,  the  capital. 
There,  his  first  convert  was  the  late  Hon.  William  H. 
Brown  of  Chicago,  whose  estate  has  since  paid  over  the 
sum  of  $70,000  to  Home  and  Foreign  Missions.  There, 
too,  was  hung  the  first  Protestant  church-bell  that  ever 
rang  in  Illinois.  Two  years  at  Vandalia,  four  or  five  in 
the  agency  of  the  Society,  and  six  in  the  principalship  of 
Monticello  Seminary,  together  with  his  experience  in 
founding  Illinois  College,  had  given  Mr.  Baldwin  such  a 
knowledge  of  the  elements  of  the  Western  problem  that, 
becoming  in  1843  the  secretary  of  the  college  society,  he 
attained  the  title  of  '  the  Father  of  Western  Colleges.'  "  * 

Illinois  College,  founded  by  a  band  of  young  mission- 
aries from  New  England,  is  but  one  in  the  long  column 
of  institutions  similarly  planted.  It  was  fortunate  in 
securing  for  its  first  president  Dr.  Edward  Beecher.     Its 

*  Home  Missionary,  vol.  42,  p.  186. 


Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  71 

first  class  had  but  two  students,  but  one  of  them  was 
Richard  Yates,  afterwards  the  famous  war  governor  of 
Illinois.  Dr.  Sturtevant  was,  for  fifty-six  years,  con- 
nected with  the  college  as  teacher,  professor,  and  presi- 
dent; a  man  of  the  keenest  foresight  and  great  mental 
vigor.  His  son,  Dr.  J.  M.  Sturtevant  of  Chicago,  in  a 
recent  article  on  the  lUinois  Band,  remarks :  ^ 

"It  is  not  easy  for  us  at  this  time  to  reahze  how  much 
courage  and  faith  were  implied  in  this  undertaking. 
To-day,  when  lUinois  is  the  third  State  in  the  Union  in 
population,  the  plan  made  by  these  young  men  seems 
feasible  and  easy.  In  those  days,  the  journey  from  New 
Haven  to  central  Illinois  consumed  from  four  to  six  weeks. 
The  whole  State  had  at  that  time  less  than  150,000  in- 
habitants, most  of  whom  were  poor  people  from  the 
Southern  States.  Wealthy  immigrants  from  that  re- 
gion passed  through  the  free  State  of  Illinois  and  settled, 
with  their  slaves,  in  Missouri.  At  that  time  the  popu- 
lation of  Chicago  did  not  include  more  than  five  or  six 
famihes.  The  whole  northern  half  of  the  State  was  a 
nearly  unbroken  wilderness.  It  was  believed  that  the 
greater  part  of  it  would  never  be  thickly  inhabited,  for 
the  lack  of  timber  wherewith  to  build  houses  and  to 
fence  the  farms,  and  because  of  the  supposed  impossi- 
bility of  making  good  roads  over  that  rich  prairie  soil." 

Later  in  the  same  article  Dr.  Sturtevant  adds:  "The 
Illinois  Band  was  fortunate  in  the  time  of  its  coming  to 
the  West,  just  before  the  great  stream  of  Eastern  immi- 
gration began  to  pour  into  the  State  by  the  way  of  the 
Great  Lakes,  and  not  long  before  the  opening  of  the 
Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal,  the  introduction  of  rail- 

*  Home  Missionary,  vol.  73,  p.  177. 


72  Leavening  the  Nation 

roads  and  modern  fencing,  turned  the  beautiful  wilder- 
ness into  a  fruitful  garden.  They  were  fortunate  in 
finding  the  way  prepared  for  them  by  earlier  missionaries 
of  the  same  society  which  sent  them  out,  and  a  noble 
band  of  Christian  laymen  who  rallied  around  them. 
They  were  also  fortunate  in  the  helpers  that  came  to 
them,  such  as  Edward  Beecher  and  Truman  M.  Post, 
and  a  host  of  others,  whom  I  may  not  mention. 
Abraham  Lincoln  regarded  the  faculty  and  early  gradu- 
ates of  Illinois  College  as  among  his  chosen  counselors." 
From  whatever  point  we  view  it,  therefore,  the  Illinois 
Band,  in  the  character  of  its  men  and  in  the  time  of  its 
coming,  must  be  regarded  as  one  of  those  providential 
movements  of  which  the  history  of  the  early  West  is  so 
full;  the  flowering  of  that  home-missionary  interest 
which  was  planted  by  the  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts Societies  in  1798-99,  which  took  practical  form  in 
the  General  Assembly  of  1802,  was  fully  organized  in  the 
joint  convention  of  Congregational,  Presbyterian,  and 
Reformed  churches  in  1826,  and  has  ever  since  been 
pouring  its  consecrated  money  and  men  into  the  hfe  of 
the  West. 


THE      NORTHWEST     TERKTTORY— MICHIGAN 
AND  WISCONSIN 

The  "Territory  of  Michigan"  and  "Michigan  Terri- 
tory" have  included  at  different  times  the  present  State 
of  that  name,  Wisconsin,  Indiana,  part  of  Minnesota, 
and  even  a  strip  of  Ohio,  The  latter  was  exchanged  in 
1836  for  what  is  now  known  as  the  Upper  Peninsula. 
No  part  of  the  Northwest  Territory  won  its  Statehood 
through  greater  stress  and  strain  than  the  State  of 
Michigan. 

It  has  already  been  noted  that  the  early  settlement  of 
the  Northwest  was  delayed  by  the  unfriendliness  of 
Great  Britain  and  the  more  active  hostiUty  of  the  Indian 
tribes.  Michigan,  from  its  isolated  position  and  its 
proximity  to  Canada,  was  among  the  chief  sufferers 
from  these  causes,  until  that  intrepid  pioneer,  George 
Rogers  Clark,  after  playing  a  conspicuous  part  in  the 
settlement  of  Kentucky  determined  to  put  an  end  to 
these  conditions.  With  a  small  company  of  less  than 
200  men  he  marched  across  country  from  the  borders  of 
Virginia  to  the  British  post  at  Kaskaskia,  broke  into  the 
fort  and  compelled  its  capitulation  to  the  United  States. 
The  French  settlers  at  Cahokia,  upon  learning  of  the 
captiu-e,  surrendered  voluntarily  and  Vincennes  quickly 
followed  suit.  The  English  rallied  and  recaptured  the 
latter  stronghold,  but  were  in  turn  driven  out  and  the 

73 


74  Leavening  the  Nation 

English  cordon  of  posts,  by  which  Great  Britain  sought 
to  enforce  her  claim  to  all  territory  north  of  the  Ohio, 
was  effectually  broken.  The  treaty  of  peace  with  Eng- 
land indicated  unmistakably  that  the  northern  boundary 
of  the  United  States  was  to  be  the  line  of  the  Great  Lakes; 
but  it  had  pleased  the  English  to  regard  the  southern 
peninsula  of  Michigan  and  south  to  the  Ohio  as  exempt, 
and  there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  but  for  the  reso- 
lute course  of  Clark  it  would  to-day  be  a  part  of  Canada. 

After  this  treble  victory,  Kaskaskia,  Cahokia,  and 
Vincennes,  nothing  remained  to  be  desired  but  the  pos- 
session of  Detroit,  and  this  was  finally  conceded  by  the 
Enghsh  government,  as  it  became  more  and  more  evident 
that  its  people  were  likely  to  be  American  rather  than 
English.  Thus  by  wars  and  fightings,  by  diplomatic 
dealings  with  agents  of  the  British  government,  and 
most  of  all  by  the  resolute  courage  of  Clark  and  his  little 
army,  the  heart  of  the  Northwest  Territory  was  secured 
to  the  American  Union. 

There  remained,  however,  a  settlement  with  the  In- 
dian tribes  who  stubbornly  adhered  to  their  right  of  pos- 
session. They  resented  the  presence  of  every  white  face 
north  of  the  Ohio,  and  in  this  attitude  of  hostility  they 
were  secretly  encouraged  by  their  Enghsh  allies.  It  was 
not  until  1795  that  a  final  truce  was  signed  by  which  a 
generous  strip  of  Eastern  Michigan  and  all  claims  to  the 
posts  of  Detroit  and  Mackinaw  were  surrendered  to  the 
United  States.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Jay  had  negotiated  a 
treaty  with  Great  Britain  by  which  all  British  garrisons 
were  to  be  withdrawn  from  the  limits  of  the  United 
States,  and  on  July  11,  1796,  nine  years  after  the  famous 
Ordinance  of  1787,  "the  American  flag  was  for  the  first 
time  raised  above  Detroit  and  the  laws  of  the  United 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  75 

States  and  the  Northwest  Territory  were  extended  over 
the  Michigan  settlements."  ^ 

Nine  years  later,  in  1805,  Michigan  was  set  off  from 
Indiana  and  became  a  Territory  by  itself.  Population 
had  gathered  slowly  and  was  divided  between  French, 
English,  and  American.  Detroit  was  the  metropolis; 
the  people  were  mostly  Catholic;  but  the  missionary 
care  and  instruction  they  had  received  under  the  French 
control  had  been  withdrawn,  and  ''their  piety  scarcely 
went  beyond  profession."  ^  The  total  population  did 
not  exceed  4,000.  But  the  significant  and  hopeful  fact 
was  that  the  new  Territory,  now  a  ward  of  the  United 
States,  was  under  the  wise  and  beneficent  terms  of  the 
Ordinance  of  1787,  which  provided  that  as  soon  as  it 
could  show  5,000  male  inhabitants  of  age,  it  would  be 
entitled  to  elect  a  Territorial  legislature  and  begin  the 
career  of  a  self-governing  people.  The  appointment  of 
an  incompetent  governor,  the  friction  that  followed  be- 
tween the  governor  and  his  nearest  counsellor,  the  Chief 
Justice,  and  more  particularly  the  War  of  1812  which  re- 
opened active  hostilities  from  Canada,  chilled  and  de- 
ferred the  fulfilment  of  these  hopes;  and  it  was  not  until 
Detroit  had  been  taken  by  the  British  and  retaken  by 
the  Americans,  not  until  after  Perry's  brilliant  victory 
on  Lake  Erie  and  the  debris  of  the  second  war  with  Great 
Britain  had  been  cleared  away,  that  the  normal  Ameri- 
can life  of  Michigan  began. 

It  was  heralded  by  the  appointment  of  General  Lewis 
Cass  as  governor;  and  perhaps  no  greater  blessing  ever 


*T.  M.  Cooley,  "Michigan"  (American  Commonwealth  Series), 
p.  118. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  141. 


y6  Leavening  the  Nation 

befell  a  new  settlement.  During  his  administration, 
cheap  lands  were  brought  into  the  market;  immigration 
was  encouraged ;  roads  were  built  into  the  interior  which 
up  to  this  time  had  never  been  critically  surveyed;  the 
Upper  Peninsula  was  added  to  the  Territory,  and  some- 
thing of  its  mineral  wealth  began  to  be  known;  repre- 
sentation in  Congress  was  effected;  counties  and  town- 
ships were  organized;  the  printing-press  and  newspaper 
appeared;  the  smoke  of  steamships  was  seen  on  Lake 
Erie;  and  last  and  most  of  all,  the  Erie  Canal  was  com- 
pleted in  1825,  and  Michigan  connected  by  a  highway 
with  the  Atlantic  and  the  East.  In  twenty-five  years 
population  had  advanced  from  4,000  to  34,000,  and  the 
future  of  Michigan  as  an  independent  State  was  practi- 
cally assured. 

Meanwhile  home  missions  had  begun  as  early  as  1809. 
Rev.  John  Monteith,  a  Methodist  pioneer,  was  preaching 
to  Protestants,  without  distinction  of  sect,  at  Detroit. 
Congregational  and  Presbyterian  missions  began  in  1826 
and  Baptist  in  1832.  In  that  year  there  were  three  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Baptist  Board  in  Michigan,  and  twelve  of 
the  American  Home  Missionary  Society.  Their  work  was 
embarrassed  by  the  mixed  elements  of  the  population. 
The  French  and  Catholic  leaven  was  everywhere  appar- 
ent. Churches  were  few  and  scattered,  and  a  day's  jour- 
ney to  meeting  was  not  uncommon.  The  circuit-rider 
became  a  familiar  figure.  Camp  meetings  and  revivals 
of  doubtful  utility  were  frequent.  All  these  were  be- 
ginnings, crude,  simple,  often  objectionable,  yet  contain- 
ing germs  which  the  soberer  sense  of  later  times  was  to 
bring  to  flower  and  fruit.  The  rehgion  of  new  settle- 
ments is  much  like  their  homes,  rough  and  uncouth;  but 
give  both  time,  and  the  cabin  develops  into  a  palace, 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  77 

and  the  crude  faith  of  the  frontier  into  orderly  Christian 
worship. 

Perhaps  nowhere  in  the  Northwest  Territory,  outside 
of  Michigan,  have  home  missions  and  popular  education 
been  more  closely  identified.  Michigan's  educational 
system  has  been  described  as  "four-square"  and  it  might 
be  added,  with  a  home  missionary  at  each  corner  of  the 
square:  John  Monteith,  the  Methodist  pioneer;  Father 
Richard,  the  Catholic  priest;  O.  C.  Thompson,  a  mission- 
ary of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  John  D.  Pierce,  a 
Congregational  pastor  commissioned  by  the  American 
Home  Missionary  Society.  All  these  men  were  preachers, 
with  supreme  faith  in  the  gospel ;  yet  all  of  them  had  the 
breadth  of  vision  to  see  that  religion  without  knowledge 
is  dangerous,  and  that  public  opinion,  in  any  self-govern- 
ing state,  to  be  safe,  must  be  enlightened. 

It  was  in  1817  that  Monteith  and  Father  Richard  with 
the  help  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Territory  drew  up 
"an  act  to  establish  the  Catholepistemiad,  or  the  Uni- 
versity of  Michigania."  ^  That  the  plan  was  crude  and 
ambitious  its  name  would  indicate;  yet  "it  grasped 
certain  principles  which  from  this  time  became  incor- 
porated in  the  polity  of  the  Territory  and  subsequently 
of  the  State."  The  fundamental  thought  in  this  rather 
airy  structure  was  State  responsibility  for  the  education 
of  its  people,  and  this,  not  in  the  rudiments  of  education 
.alone,  but  in  the  higher  branches  of  learning.  The  act 
provided  that  fifteen  per  cent,  should  be  added  to  the 
Territorial  taxes  for  the  support  of  the  institution. 
Education  was  to  be  non-sectarian,  and  to  insure  this 
provision,  Mr.  Monteith,  the  Methodist,  was  made  presi- 

*T.  M.  Cooley,  "Michigan"  (American  Commonwealth  Series), 
p.  310. 


78  Leavening  the  Nation 

dent,  and  Father  Richard,  the  CathoHc,  his  assistant. 
They  might  be  trusted  to  watch  each  other.  Interest  in 
the  endeavor  was  not  confined  to  the  white  settlers,  for 
in  1817  we  find  the  Ottawas,  the  Chippewas,  and  the 
Pottawatomies,  contributing  six  sections  of  land  from 
their  then  scant  reservations  for  the  new  college. 

It  might  be  thought  that  this  ambitious  and,  in  some 
respects,  pedantic  scheme  began  at  the  wrong  end — a 
University  without  students,  a  great  finishing  school 
without  its  supporting  chain  of  academies,  high  schools, 
and  other  preparatory  institutions.  But  these  wise  men 
had  anticipated  the  dictum  of  the  Concord  philosopher, 
"Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star,"  and  the  result  proved  the 
wisdom  of  the  saying,  for  the  next  step  after  laying  the 
corner-stone  of  a  University  was  to  empower  the  trus- 
tees "to  establish  from  time  to  time  such  colleges,  acad- 
emies, and  schools  as  they  may  think  proper."  ^  It  is 
further  to  be  noticed  that  these  prophets  of  education 
saw  so  far  in  advance  of  the  pubhc  sentiment  of  their 
times,  that  the  doors  of  the  new  university  were  opened 
to  both  sexes,  and  have  never  since  been  closed  in  Michi- 
gan. 

Such  were  the  Territorial  ambitions  with  respect  to 
education.  The  new  State  inaugurated  in  1837  did  not 
discourage,  but  confirmed  and  promoted  the  scheme, 
though  stripping  it  of  some  of  its  spectacular  features. 
There  was  no  longer  a  "  Catholepistemiad  of  Michigania," 
but  there  was  a  "University  of  Michigan"  which  has  set 
the  pace  and  supplied  the  model  for  other  States.  The 
"star"  was  still  drawing  the  "  wagon,"  though  the  latter 
had  become  a  stately  coach. 

>  T.  M.  Cooley,  "Michigan,"  p.  313. 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  79 

In  1831,  John  D.  Pierce  had  been  commissioned  as  a 
Congregational  missionary,  and  began  work  in  Jackson, 
Calhoun,  and  Eton  counties.  He  solemnized  the  first 
marriage  and  officiated  at  the  first  funeral  in  western 
Michigan.^  He  was  a  man  of  vision,  but  not  a  dreamer, 
adding  to  intense  missionary  enthusiasm,  practical  sense, 
and  a  knowledge  of  affairs.  He  and  his  young  wife,  a 
lady  of  intelligence  and  refinement,  travelled  widely  over 
their  difficult  field,  and  thus  he  was  fitted  by  a  rare  ex- 
perience for  a  peculiar  service,  whose  importance  he  did 
not  himself  realize.  He  and  General  Isaac  E.  Crary, 
afterwards  Michigan's  first  representative  to  Congress, 
were  drawn  together  by  a  common  interest  in  public 
education,  and  it  was  by  Crary's  influence  in  the  Consti- 
tutional convention  that  education  was  made  an  inde- 
pendent department  of  the  State  government.  By  his 
influence  lands  granted  by  the  general  government  for 
school  purposes  were  turned  over  to  the  State  govern- 
ment, rather  than  to  the  separate  townships,  and  the 
State  was  led  to  guarantee  that  these  should  be  held 
sacredly  in  trust  for  this  purpose.  To  the  credit  of 
Michigan  it  should  be  added  that  no  part  of  these  lands 
has  ever  been  lost,  squandered,  or  misappropriated.  By 
General  Crary's  influence,  also,  John  D.  Pierce  was  made 
first  superintendent  of  public  instruction.  The  scheme 
formulated  by  the  new  superintendent  was  simple  but 
comprehensive,  and  so  wisely  drawn  that  to  this  day  it 
stands  without  radical  change.  It  is  unsectarian,  but 
provides  for  the  impartial  representation  of  all  churches, 
both  in  the  governing  boards  and  in  the  teaching  force. 
The  regents  of  the  State  university  were  to  be  elected 

»  T.  M.  Cooley,  "Michigan,"  p.  318. 


8o  Leavening  the  Nation 

by  popular  vote  with  State  officers  as  ex-officio  mem- 
bers, and  its  support  to  be  derived  from  the  income  of 
university  lands.  The  scheme  included  departments 
of  literature,  science,  law,  arts,  medicine,  and  such  others 
as  time  might  require.  Preparatory  schools  in  all  parts 
of  the  State  were  to  be  established  and  the  doors  of  the 
university  and  all  its  branches  were  thrown  open  to 
both  sexes. 

No  hasty  review  of  these  movements  can  do  them  any 
justice.  We  cannot  but  marvel  to  see  a  young  State, 
populated  only  along  its  margin,  almost  unexplored  in 
its  forest  depths,  heterogeneous  in  its  population,  isolated 
practically  from  its  sister  commonwealths,  and  with 
everything  in  the  great  task  of  development  to  be  under- 
taken, thus  so  wisely  and  deliberately  forelaying  its 
scheme  of  education  for  generations  unborn.  Such  in- 
sight and  foresight  compel  admiration  for  the  early  set- 
tlers of  Michigan,  and  reflect  special  honor  on  the  home 
missionary  leaders  who  initiated  the  movement.  It  is 
no  extravagant  praise  to  say  with  the  historian  of  Michi- 
gan, that  "its  founders  took  position  in  advance  of  the 
thought  of  their  day,"  "that  no  commonwealth  in  the 
world  makes  provision  more  broad,  complete  or  thor- 
ough," and  "that  the  new  States  of  the  Union,  in  fram- 
ing their  educational  systems,  have  been  glad  to  follow 
the  example  of  Michigan,  and  have  had  fruitful  and 
satisfactory  success  in  proportion  as  they  have  adhered 
to  it."  ' 

Michigan  is  still  a  frontier  State,  none  more  so,  and, 
Maine  only  excepted,  none  equally  so.  Like  Maine  also 
its  frontier  is  on  the  west  and  on  the  north.     Beginning 

'  T.  M.  Cooley,  "Michigan,"  p.  328. 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  8i 

its  history  with  a  mixed  population,  it  has  never  become 
entirely  homogeneous.  In  the  southern  counties  first 
settled,  it  begins  to  show  decaying  villages  and  coimtry 
churches  depleted  by  emigration.  These  perpetuate 
missionary  conditions.  The  "stump  district,"  so-called, 
covers  that  considerable  portion  of  the  lower  peninsula 
which  is  passing  from  a  lumbering  to  an  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  community.  Lumbermen  and  their  tem- 
porary shanties  have  vanished,  and  new  settlements 
with  all  the  missionary  needs  of  the  frontier  are  coming 
in.  The  "Copper  Country"  of  the  North  with  its  thirty- 
three  different  nationalities,  presents  another  condition 
demanding  another  treatment.  Thus,  from  the  mis- 
sionary point  of  view,  there  are  three  Michigans  and  a 
triple  problem  to  be  solved.^ 

Yet  few  States  have  responded  more  worthily  to  home 
missionary  culture.  The  Methodists  have  found  it  a 
quick  soil  in  which  fully  1,600  churches  have  taken  root 
with  a  membership  rising  100,000.  The  Baptist  Home 
Mission  Society  has  planted  over  500  churches,  the  Con- 
gregational over  350,  the  Presbyterian  260,  and  the 
Reformed  Church  about  100.  After  sixty  years  of  con- 
tinuous home  missionary  effort,  Michigan  stands  abreast 
of  New  Hampshire  and  Iowa  in  the  Christian  per  cent,  of 
its  population,  and  perceptibly  in  advance  of  South 
Dakota,  Nebraska,  Oregon,  and  Washington;  this  is 
nearly  aU  home  missionary  fruitage ;  for  not  one  in  ten 
of  its  churches  has  been  started  without  the  help  of 
organized  home  missions.^ 

'  W.  H.  Warren,  "Seventy-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Congre- 
gational Home  Missionary  Society,"  pp.  85,  86. 

'  For  a  graphic  description  of  missionary  conditions  and  life  in 
Michigan,  nothing  better  has  been  pubUshed  than  W.  G.  Pudde- 
foot's  book,  "The  Minute  Man  on  the  Frontier."  It  is  largely 
an  autobiography. 


82  Leavening  the  Nation 

The  early  story  of  Wisconsin  is  embraced  in  that  of 
Michigan  with  which  it  was  identified  until  1836,  when 
the  Territory  of  Wisconsin  was  formed.  Twelve  years 
later,  in  1848,  it  became  a  State,  being  the  seventeenth 
in  order  admitted  under  the  Constitution.  Home  mis- 
sionary work  began  with  the  organization  of  the  Terri- 
tory, and  received  a  marked  impulse  in  1840,  by  the 
horseback  journey  of  Stephen  Peet,  who  began  his  own 
work  at  Green  Bay  in  1836,  where  he  had  established  a 
church,  which  is  among  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first, 
organizations  in  Wisconsin. 

The  missionary  journey  of  Mr.  Peet  kept  him  in  the 
saddle  most  of  the  time  for  six  weeks,  during  which  he 
covered  six  hundred  miles  of  travel  and  visited  thirty-one 
different  settlements.  His  course  was  southwest  from 
Green  Bay,  following  Fox  River  and  the  east  shore  of 
Winnebago  Lake,  to  Fond  du  Lac  and  Frankfort,  and 
finally  led  him  to  Madison,  the  young  capital  of  the  Ter- 
ritory. At  this  point  he  changed  his  course  to  the  south- 
east, to  take  in  Beloit,  Racine,  and  Milwaukee. 

Two  years  before  the  organization  of  the  Territory,  the 
population  was  estimated  to  be  about  10,000.  In  1840, 
at  the  time  of  Mr.  Peet's  exploration,  it  had  reached 
30,000,  and  was  increasing  at  the  rate  of  4,000  a  month. 
The  newcomers  found  homes  chiefly  in  the  southern  and 
eastern  counties,  and  nineteen-twentieths  of  them  were 
from  the  Eastern  States. 

Mr.  Peet's  narrative  was  printed  and  widely  read  and 
for  a  time  home  missionary  interest  seemed  to  concen- 
trate upon  Wisconsin.  Its  climate  was  healthful;  its 
rolling  lands  were  beautiful  and  productive;  its  timber 
belts  were  favorable  for  home  building;  its  extensive 
lake  shore  made  it  accessible,  and  only  a  short  canal  be- 


Thomas  J.  Morgan,  LL.  D. 

Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  American  Baptist  Home    Mission 

Society  from  1893  to  1902. 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  83 

tween  Fort  Winnebago  and  the  Wisconsin  River  was 
needed  to  connect  Lake  Michigan  with  the  Mississippi. 
It  was  humorously  said  at  the  time  that  "navigation 
could  be  opened  from  Green  Bay  to  the  Mississippi  at 
less  expense  than  it  would  cost  the  government  for 
Congress  to  talk  about  it." 

The  Peet  narrative,  scarcely  more  than  sixty  years  old 
and  well  within  the  memory  of  many  readers,  is  full  of 
surprises.  One  can  hardly  resist  a  rising  sense  of  himior 
as  he  reads  that  "Beloit  is  a  thriving  village  on  the  Rock 
River  where  are  mills  and  several  stores  and  a  population 
of  250  and  destined  to  be  a  place  of  considerable  busi- 
ness." Racine  gives  promise  also  of  being  "a,  place  of 
some  importance,  present  population  250."  As  to 
Milwaukee,  it  is  granted  "to  be  a  point  of  great  im- 
portance, both  in  itself  and  on  account  of  its  influence 
on  the  interior  with  which  it  must  be  connected  in  its 
business  in  a  thousand  ways."  "Geneva  is  a  thriving 
little  place,"  while  "Madison  (the  capital)  is  a  flourish- 
ing village"  of  less  than  300  people,  who  have  no  church 
as  yet,  "but  an  interesting  Sunday-school  in  operation." 

It  is  only  thus  by  turning  back  a  few  leaves  of  history 
that  we  are  enabled  to  realize  the  vast  and  rapid  growth 
of  a  western  commonwealth.  To  us,  in  our  superior 
knowledge;  these  naive  revelations  bring  a  smile;  but  to 
the  churches  of  the  East,  in  1840,  the  look  was  forward, 
and  a  rare  exercise  of  faith  had  to  supply  the  substance 
of  things  that  are  so  clear  to  the  backward  vision  of  these 
days. 

One  of  the  first  responses  to  the  published  narrative 
of  Peet  was  a  conditional  promise  of  $1,000  to  the  Ameri- 
can Home  Missionary  Society  enclosing  $250  "towards 
the  support  of  ten  missionaries  for  the  ten  stations  men- 


84  Leavening  the  Nation 

tioned  in  the  report  of  Rev.  Stephen  Peet."  "As  soon 
as  I  am  advised  that  they  have  occupied  the  ground  four 
months,  I  will  pay  $250  more,  and  a  hke  sum  when  they 
shall  have  labored  eight  months,  and  a  Uke  sum  at  the 
completion  of  one  year."  The  gift  was  anonymous; 
and  that  it  was  not  the  overflow  of  a  full  purse,  is  made 
sufficiently  plain  in  the  postscript,  "always  provided 
that  I  am  alive  and  enabled  at  the  several  periods  men- 
tioned to  appropriate  the  funds  without  depriving  my 
family  of  the  necessaries  of  hfe." 

The  religious  development  of  Wisconsin  has  been 
affected  more  than  that  of  many  Western  States  by  the 
preponderance  of  foreign  elements.  It  was  here  that  a 
"German  Commonwealth"  was  at  one  time  seriously 
contemplated  and  might  have  been  attempted  but  for 
the  fortunate  increase  at  that  time  of  emigration  from 
the  East.  While  it  is  still  an  American  Commonwealth 
which  proved  its  loyalty  in  the  Civil  War  by  raising 
96,000  troops  for  the  Union  army,  it  is  a  foreign  State  in 
the  majority  of  its  people.  More  than  one  half  were  born 
in  other  lands,  and  if  the  children  of  foreign-born  parents 
be  included,  the  foreign  element  may  be  said  to  rule  the 
State.  Ten  years  ago  a  conservative  writer  having  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  the  conditions  declared:  "In  parts 
of  the  State  foreigners  are  so  solidly  massed  that  they  do 
not  feel  the  permeating  influence  of  American  ideas  and 
religion.  On  the  contrary,  they  take  the  aggressive  and 
aim  to  force  foreign  ideas  and  to  control  honors,  as,  for 
instance,  in  substituting  parochial  for  public  schools  and 
absolutely  forbidding  the  use  of  the  English  language 
in  them."  ^ 

'  T.  M,  Grassie,  Home  Missionary,  1890,  p.  117. 


Michigan  and  Wisconsin  85 

Such  conditions  create  an  undeniable  handicap  to 
home-missionary  progress.  All  the  more  credit  there- 
fore to  the  home-missionary  army  for  results  achieved 
in  the  face  of  such  obstacles.  Sixty  years  have  passed 
since  Mr.  Feet's  memorable  trip,  and  Wisconsin,  with  all 
its  doubtful  environments,  stands  abreast  of  Ohio,  New 
York,  and  Minnesota  in  the  percentage  of  its  Christian 
population,  and  has  outstripped  Vermont,  Illinois,  Michi- 
gan, and  Pennsylvania.  Congregationalists  have  gath- 
ered 250  churches  and  brought  176  of  them  to  self-sup- 
port. Presbyterians  have  planted  nearly  200  churches. 
Methodists  are  represented  in  the  State  by  800  churches, 
Baptists  by  250,  the  Reformed  Church  by  75,  and  Epis- 
copalians by  140.  Almost  without  exception  these 
points  of  Christian  influence  were  created  by  organized 
home  missions,*  and  nowhere  in  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory has  the  leaven  of  the  kingdom  proved  more  pene- 
trating or  productive  than  in  the  State  of  "The  Wild 
Rushing  River." 

Here  must  end  our  review  of  the  Northwest  Territory, 
In  parting,  we  are  impressed  with  the  comment  of  Pro- 
fessor Turner,  "The  men  and  women  who  made  the 
Middle  West  were  ideaUsts,  and  they  had  the  power  and 
will  to  make  their  dreams  come  true."  The  wilderness 
and  forest  which  they  subdued  are  crowned  to-day 
with  the  populous  cities  they  saw  in  their  dreams,  and 
their  log  cabins  have  expanded  into  the  palatial  homes 
of  their  early  visions.  Yesterday,  a  pioneer  province, 
the  Middle  West  is  to-day  the  field  of  industrial  re- 
sources so  vast,  that  "Europe,  alarmed  for  her  indus- 
tries in  competition  with  this  new  power,  is  discussing 

'  H.  W.  Carter,  "Seventy-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Home  Missionary  Society,"  p.  83. 


86  Leavening  the  Nation 

the  pohcy  of  forming  protective  alhances  among  the 
nations  of  the  Continent." 

In  this  swift  and  unparalleled  development  what  has 
saved  the  old  Northwest  from  a  vulgar,  selfish,  and  ut- 
terly godless  materialism?  More  than  one  reply  to  that 
question  is  possible;  but  it  is  no  extravagance  to  claim 
that  to  a  widely  diffused  system  of  education,  and  to 
consecrated  home-missionary  endeavor,  the  escape  has 
been  primarily  due.  Clear  and  distinct  among  the  ideals 
of  the  very  earliest  settlers  was  that  of  the  school  and  the 
church,  ideals  which  no  dazzling  mists  of  prosperity  have 
ever  obscured.  The  leaven  of  education  and  religion 
was  faithfully  hidden  in  the  growing  meal.  Every 
schoolhouse  built  and  opened  has  taught,  from  one 
generation  to  another,  the  value  of  mind  over  matter, 
and  every  church  planted  by  home  missions  has  been 
the  nucleus  of  that  devotion  to  law,  order,  moral  hving, 
and  patriotic  virtue  which  are  the  chief  characteristics 
of  the  people  of  the  old  Northwest.^ 

'See  a  suggestive  article  byE.  H.  Abbott,  "Religious  Life  in 
America,"  Outlook,  Nov,  8,  1902. 


vn 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— MISSOURI, 
IOWA 

While  the  Northwest  Territory  was  still  in  the  first 
stages  of  occupation,  even  before  its  early  settlers  had 
obtained  peaceful  possession  of  the  soil,  the  area  of  the 
nation  was  suddenly  expanded  by  the  purchase  of  an 
immense  tract,  hitherto  known  as  Louisiana  or  New 
Spain.  Up  to  1800  it  was  a  Spanish  possession,  when  it 
was  ceded  to  France.  Three  years  later  it  passed,  by 
purchase,  to  the  United  States.  The  price  paid  was 
about  $15,000,000.  This  expansion  of  national  terri- 
tory, to  the  extent  of  a  million  square  miles,  was  des- 
tined to  be  epochal. 

The  event  was  due,  in  part,  to  the  firmness  and  fore- 
sight of  President  Jefferson;  in  part,  to  the  boldness  of 
Livingston  and  Monroe,  who  acted  largely  on  their  own 
responsibility,  as  agents  of  the  United  States;  not  a 
Httle,  to  the  pecuniary  necessity  of  Napoleon,  and  his 
spiteful  desire  to  prevent  English  occupation  of  the  tract; 
and,  most  of  all,  to  the  logical  necessities  of  a  growing 
nation,  whose  Western  progress  could  not  be  arrested  by 
the  Mississippi  River. 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  his  "Winning  of  the  West,"  insists 
with  repeated  emphasis,  that  neither  the  government 
nor  its  commissioners  are  to  be  chiefly  credited  with  our 
possession  of  this  valuable  addition,  but  that  the  people 

87 


88  Leavening  the  Nation 

themselves,  who  had  passed  over  the  river  in  large  num- 
bers, were  the  real  agents  in  the  transaction.  There  is 
much  of  truth  in  that  view.  Without  Jefferson,  Living- 
ston, or  Monroe,  Louisiana  would  ultimately  have  been 
ours ;  not,  perhaps,  without  a  war  with  France,  in  which 
the  United  States  would  have  held  every  advantage  and 
was  certain  to  win.  Napoleon  was  shrewd  enough  to 
see  this,  and  poor  enough  to  prefer  ready  cash  to  the 
doubtful  glory  of  a  costly  war.  Livingston  and  Monroe 
were  brave  enough  to  interpret  their  instructions  as  to 
the  purchase  of  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  for  $2,000,- 
000,  to  cover  the  purchase  of  the  whole  western  valley 
of  that  river  for  $15,000,000;  all  had  a  share,  and  there 
is  glory  enough  for  all  who  bore  any  part  in  the  grand 
result. 

The  purchase  of  Louisiana  gave  us  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  and  undisturbed  possession  of  its  entire 
course.  It  doubled  the  national  area  by  a  stroke  of  the 
pen.  It  carried  our  western  boundary  from  Lake 
Superior  to  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Thirteen  States  and 
Territories,  more  truly  empires,  have  been  carved  out  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase.  They  include  the  great  corn 
and  wheat  belts  that  are  capable  of  supplying  the  world 
with  food,  and  their  underground  treasures  are  among 
the  richest  of  the  globe.  Fifteen  milUon  dollars  were 
a  trifle  for  such  a  possession. 

Our  whole  development  as  a  nation  has  been  vitally 
affected  by  this  purchase.  The  war  of  the  Revolution 
gave  us  freedom;  that  of  1812  gave  us  commercial  inde- 
pendence; but  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  "changed  the 
national  center  of  gravity."  Up  to  this  time  America 
had  been  facing  the  East  from  whence  it  came.  With 
the  opening  of  the  Louisiana  Territory  it  faced  about, 


Missouri,  Iowa  89 

and  for  the  last  hundred  years  the  star  of  American 
empire  has  been  taking  its  way  towards  the  Western  Sea. 

Obvious  as  all  these  advantages  have  been  made  by 
events,  it  is  both  amusing  and  instructive  to  recall  the 
dismal  prophecies  of  some  of  the  leading  statesmen  of 
1803.  Said  a  Connecticut  representative  in  Congress, 
"This  vast  unmanageable  extent,  the  consequent  dis- 
persion of  our  population,  and  the  destruction  of  that 
balance  which  it  is  so  important  to  maintain  between 
the  Eastern  and  Western  States,  threaten,  at  no  very 
distant  day,  the  subversion  of  our  Union." 

A  senator  from  New  Hampshire  was  equally  despair- 
ing. Said  he:  "Admit  this  western  world  into  the 
Union,  and  you  destroy  at  once  the  weight  and  im- 
portance of  the  Eastern  States,  and  compel  them  to  es- 
tabUsh  a  separate,  independent  empire." 

A  Virginia  representative  believed  that  "this  Eden  of 
of  the  New  World  would  prove  a  cemetery  for  the  bodies 
of  our  citizens,"  and  a  Delaware  senator  of  the  period 
predicted  that  the  incorporation  of  Louisiana  "would 
be  the  greatest  curse  that  could  befall  us.  Our  citizens 
will  be  removed  to  the  immense  distance  of  two  or  three 
thousand  miles  from  the  capital  of  the  Union,  where  they 
will  scarcely  ever  feel  the  rays  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment; their  affections  will  become  alienated,  they  will 
gradually  begin  to  view  us  as  strangers,  they  wiU  form 
other  commercial  connections,  and  our  interests  will 
become  distinct;  and,  even  if  this  extent  of  territory 
was  a  desirable  acquisition,  fifteen  milUons  of  dollars 
was  a  most  enormous  sum  to  give." 

One  hundred  years  have  passed  and  the  nation  is  mak- 
ing ready  to  celebrate,  at  St.  Louis,  the  centennial  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase.    Would  that  the  Jeremiahs  of  1803 


go  Leavening  the  Nation 

might  be  there,  and  that  some  of  their  descendants  of 
1903  might  be  persuaded  to  open  their  eyes  to  the  teach- 
ing of  history!  Every  fear  of  those  foreboding  states- 
men has  been  disappointed,  and  the  hopes  of  the  young 
nation  at  that  time  are  more  than  justified.  Thirteen 
States  or  Territories  cover  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  of 
which  Oklahoma  is  the  well-loved  Benjamin.  They 
contain  one  sixth  of  the  population  of  the  country,  a 
peaceful,  prosperous,  loyal,  and  homogeneous  family,  on 
which  "the  rays  of  the  General  Government"  never 
cease  to  fall,  and  from  which  it  gathers  wealth  and 
strength.  The  cattle,  alone,  on  the  thousand  hills  of 
Wyoming  are  worth  two  millions  of  dollars  more  than 
was  paid  for  the  whole  of  Louisiana  in  1803.  Schools, 
colleges,  seminaries,  churches,  and  Christian  homes,  all 
of  the  highest  type,  dot  the  whole  surface  of  what  was 
once  Louisiana,  and  from  the  Mexican  Gulf  to  the  Can- 
ada line,  it  constitutes,  with  its  double  and  triple  tiers 
of  commonwealths,  the  backbone  of  the  nation. 

From  this  extensive  purchase  Missouri  was  admitted 
to  the  Union  in  1821  as  a  slave  State;  Iowa,  as  a  free 
State,  in  1846;  they  are  among  the  first  fruits  of  National 
expansion.  Because  of  this  fact,  and  for  the  reason  that 
they  present  striking  home-missionary  contrasts,  they 
are  here  grouped  together. 

Before  the  admission  of  Missouri,  of  the  twenty-two 
States  constituting  the  Union,  ten  were  slave  States. 
When  the  question  came  up  of  adding  another  common- 
wealth to  the  slavery  column,  the  ominous  phrases 
"State  Rights"  and  the  "Balance  of  Power"  began  to 
be  heard,  for  the  first  time,  in  Congress.  In  the  debate 
over  Missouri,  the  compromise  first  proposed  by  the 
opponents  of  slavery  was,  that  no  slaves  should,  after 


Missouri,  Iowa  91 

its  admission,  be  brought  into  the  new  State,  and  that 
all  children  born  in  it,  subsequent  to  its  admission, 
should  be  free  at  the  age  of  twenty-five.  Obviously, 
these  conditions,  had  they  been  adopted,  would  in  time 
have  made  Missouri  a  free  State,  and  must  have  power- 
fully affected  its  history. 

Unfortunately,  they  were  rejected,  and  another  com- 
promise, satisfying  to  both  parties  for  the  time  being, 
but  which  proved  revolutionary  in  the  end,  prevailed. 
Missouri  was  admitted  with  the  sacred  provision  that 
thus  far  and  no  farther  should  slavery  ever  encroach 
upon  territory  north  of  36°  30'.  Thus  a  Hne,  beheved 
to  be  hard  and  fast,  was  drawn  between  slavery  and  free- 
dom, and  Missouri  was  to  be  the  only  State  above  that 
line.  "The  North  had  got  a  hne  and  the  South  had  won 
a  State."  The  old  fable  of  the  camel's  nose  within  the 
traveller's  tent  might  have  been  applied  to  the  situation; 
and  only  thirty  years  were  needed  to  justify  its  truth. 

St.  Louis  at  this  time  was  largely  French  in  popula- 
tion and  customs.  The  Catholic  clergy  ruled  in  rehgion; 
boys  were  taught  in  the  parish  schools  and  girls  in  the 
nunnery.  French  Creoles,  in  employ  of  the  fur-trading 
companies,  and  adventurers,  chiefly  from  the  South, 
made  up  the  balance  of  the  population.  Outside  of  St. 
Louis,  the  State  was  being  rather  rapidly  occupied  by  a 
different  class,  many  of  them  from  the  North.  In  1816 
only  thirty  families  were  to  be  found  on  the  left  bank  of 
the  Missouri,  which,  in  three  years  from  that  time,  had 
increased  to  eight  hundred  families. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  home-missionary  pioneer 
had  appeared  in  Missouri  as  early  as  1814.  In  that  year 
Samuel  J.  Mills  and  Daniel  Smith,  sent  out  by  the  mis- 
sionary societies  of  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  set 


92  Leavening  the  Nation 

forth  on  horseback,  crossing  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio, 
Southern  Indiana  and  IlHnois,  and  so  to  St.  Louis.  Here 
they  found  "a  village  of  2,000,  three  fourths  of  whom 
were  Catholics."  From  these  men  the  people  heard,  if 
not  the  first,  among  the  first  Protestant  sermons  on  that 
side  of  the  Mississippi.^  Two  years  later,  Rev.  Salmon 
Giddings  followed  Mills  and  Smith  over  the  same  track, 
and,  after  eighteen  months  of  hard  labor,  organized  the 
first  Presbyterian  church  of  St.  Louis,  consisting  of  nine 
members,  five  of  whom  were  Massachusetts  Congregation- 
alists.  As  pastor  of  this  church,  and  as  missionary  in 
general  for  Missouri  and  Illinois,  Giddings  fulfilled  an 
arduous  ministry  to  the  time  of  his  death  in  1828,  and 
during  those  twelve  years,  succeeded  in  gathering  only 
five  churches  in  Missouri, 

The  beginnings  were  as  feeble  as  they  were  few.  New 
England  religion  and  Yankee  preachers  were  not  popular, 
and  Protestantism  was  above  all  other  things  abhorred. 
The  tables  of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society, 
for  thirty  years,  from  1827  to  1857,  do  not  show,  in  any 
one  year,  more  than  thirty  missionaries  in  Missouri,  and 
for  most  of  these  years  not  one  half  that  number.  Dur- 
ing the  war  period  this  force  was  reduced  to  zero,  but 
after  the  return  of  peace  it  rose  rapidly  to  nearly  seventy. 

Considering  the  mixed  and  often  hostile  elements  of  the 
State,  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder,  and  even  of  congratula- 
tion, that  Missouri  has  yielded  anything  like  the  harvest 
it  has.  In  the  percentage  of  its  religious  forces,  it  is  in 
advance  of  New  Hampshire  and  of  Maine,  and  a  close 
second  to  its  free  State  neighbor  Iowa. 

It  is  true,  indeed,  that  these  forces  are  not  always  of  a 

'Baptist  pioneer  preachers  had  crossed  the  river  before  1800, 


Missouri,  Iowa  93 

very  high  order,  especially  in  the  rural  portions  of  the 
State.  In  St.  Louis,  Kansas  City,  and  in  other  cities  and 
large  towns,  are  found  good  and  strong  churches,  main- 
tained at  the  highest  standard.  To  say  nothing  of  its 
living  ministry,  there  are  no  more  honored  names  in 
American  church  history  than  those  of  Salmon  Giddings, 
John  M.  Peck,  Truman  M.  Post,  Artemas  Bullard,  and 
Constans  L.  Goodell  of  St.  Louis,  and  their  memory  is  a 
benediction  to  the  State.  But  to  the  church  life  of  much 
of  rural  Missouri  there  is  a  certain  Southern  cast  insepa- 
rable, as  yet,  from  the  early  training  and  crude  tastes  of 
the  people.  Yet,  with  increased  Northern  immigration, 
and  especially  with  improved  schools  and  higher  insti- 
tutions of  learning,  better  standards  are  beginning  to 
prevail. 

It  is  quite  probable  that  religious  "organization"  has 
been  pushed  unduly  and  education  too  Uttle,  until 
"religious  forces,"  reckoned  by  the  number  of  churches, 
means  less  in  Missouri  than  in  some  other  States.  Still 
it  must  be  granted  that  for  a  State  so  heavily  handi- 
capped in  its  origin,  overshadowed  so  long  by  the  bar- 
barism of  slavery,  and  so  sadly  distracted  by  the  fortunes 
of  war,  Missouri  has  shown  itself  unexpectedly  responsive 
to  missionary  culture.  Its  great  weakness  is  the  lack  of 
a  substantial  substructiu-e  of  popular  education.  This 
lack  was  not  as  clear  to  the  missionary  organizations  of 
1820  as  it  is  to-day:  but  experience  has  taught  wisdom 
and  there  is  good  sense  and  sound  truth  in  the  judgment 
of  one  home-missionary  superintendent,  based  upon  years 
of  observation,  who  declares : 

"To  do  effective  work  in  Missouri  we  must  train  a  con- 
stituency. We  must  resort  to  first  principles  and  begin 
to  do  as  our  fathers  did  on  New  England  soil, — plant  the 


94  Leavening  the  Nation 

schoolhouse  alongside  of  the  church.  We  must  get  near 
to  the  cradle  to  begin.  You  may  have  religion  flourish 
without  education,  but  not  the  Christian  religion.  Better 
to  have  missions  that  will  in  time  grow  into  churches, 
than  to  start  with  a  weak  church,  in  an  environment 
unpropitious,  which  sooner  or  later  degenerates  into  a 
mission  or  dies  altogether."  ^ 

Passing  from  Missouri  to  Iowa,  we  enter  a  new  zone. 
Historically,  Iowa  may  be  pardoned  some  confusion  as  to 
her  parentage  and  descent,  and  even  a  doubt  as  to 
whether  she  was  ever  born,  like  other  States,  or  hke 
Topsy,  "just  growed, "  Few  States  have  passed  through 
so  many  Territorial  transformations.  During  the  Revo- 
lution she  was  Spanish  soil;  in  1801  she  had  passed  to 
Napoleon  and  the  French;  in  1803,  as  a  part  of  the 
Louisiana  Purchase,  she  came  under  American  control. 
Later,  from  1812  to  1821,  she  was  joined  to  Missouri,  as 
part  of  Missouri  Territory.  In  1834  Michigan  claimed 
her  as  part  of  the  Territory  of  that  name,  and  two  years 
later,  in  1836,  she  was  a  corner  of  Wisconsin.  It  was  not 
until  1838  that  Iowa  ceased  to  be  a  part  of  anything,  and 
came  into  possession  of  a  name  and  identity  all  her  own. 
It  was  in  view  of  this  varied  history  that  Senator  Grimes 
remarked,  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  1836,  "I  have 
lived  in  three  different  Territories,  under  three  different 
Territorial  governments,  although  I  have  resided  in  the 
same  town  all  the  time." 

The  early  maps  of  Iowa  indicate  but  a  small  fraction 
of  the  present  State.  They  show  a  narrow  strip  of  land 
running  along  the  Mississippi  some  two  hundred  miles 
and  about  forty  miles  in  width.    This  was  the  tract  ob- 

*  A.  K.  Wray,  Home  Missionary,  vol.  72,  p.  117. 


Missouri,  Iowa  95 

tained  by  Gen.  Scott's  treaty  with  Black  Hawk  in  1832. 
Other  Indian  reserves  were  added  by  purchase  in  1837, 
and  1842;  and  thus  the  present  bounds  of  the  State  were 
fixed  and  defined. 

Early  settlement,  owing  to  Indian  hostilities,  was 
slow.  In  1838  only  fourteen  counties  had  been  organ- 
ized and  Fort  Atkinson  was  still  needed  for  their  pro- 
tection argainst  the  natives.  Des  Moines,  the  future 
capital,  was  a  straggling  line  of  log  barracks  as  late  as 
1846,  "with  a  permanent  population  of  four  families  and 
about  twenty  souls."  Few  prophets  at  that  date  dis- 
cerned the  future  prosperity  of  Iowa. 

The  late  President  Magoun,  referring  to  the  short- 
sightedness of  our  public  men  as  to  the  possibilities  of 
the  West,  remarks :  "  It  is  instructive  to  remember  that  a 
President  of  the  United  States  had  once  so  little  antici- 
pation of  the  settlement  of  Iowa — to  say  nothing  of  the 
great  States  beyond  it — that  he  proposed  to  distribute 
the  soil  among  Indian  tribes;  the  Iowa  portion  of  this 
immense  proposed  reservation  is  now  a  commonwealth 
of  2,000,000  souls.  Now  and  then  one  dies  who  was  the 
first  man,  woman,  or  child,  in  one  of  its  oldest  towns, 
and  there  are  survivors  who  have  seen  the  whole  of  its 
wondrous  progress  from  the  beginning." 

Probably  to  Burton  G.  Cartwright  belongs  the  honor 
of  being  Iowa's  first  missionary  and  preacher.  In  the 
spring  of  1835  he  was  ploughing  up  the  soil  of  Burlington 
during  the  week,  and  preaching  on  Sundays.^  The  first 
result  was  a  Methodist  class  of  six  members.  That  same 
year,  at  Danville,  the  first  Baptist  church  was  organized 
and  three  or  four  Presbyterian  and  Methodist  fainilies 

*  G.  F.  Magoun's  "Asa  Turner  and  his  Times,"  p.  178. 


96  Leavening  the  Nation 

arrived  at  Dubuque,  and  started  a  united  prayer-meet- 
ing. Out  of  this  grew  a  Methodist  class  of  four,  and 
these  two  classes — ten  persons  in  all — were  at  that  time 
the  total  of  Protestant  bodies  in  Iowa. 

Religion  was  npt  in  great  demand,  though  sorely 
needed.  The  Dubuque  Visitor  remarks  editorially,  "an- 
other minister  is  wanted  here,  one  who  can  reason, 
preach,  sing,  and  enforce  the  fourth  commandment."  ^ 
In  response  to  that  call,  Rev.  Cyrus  L.  Watson,  a  New- 
School  Presbyterian  missionary,  commissioned  by  the 
American  Home  Missionary  Society,  began  work  on  the 
first  day  of  January,  1836.  In  three  years  a  Presbyte- 
rian church  was  organized,  which,  three  years  later,  be- 
came the  Congregational  church  of  that  city  where  the 
late  Dr.  J.  C.  Holbrook  filled  a  long  and  peculiarly  useful 
ministry. 

In  1837,  Rev.  J.  A.  Reed,  for  many  years  a  leading 
home-missionary  worker  in  the  State,  preached  the  first 
sermon  at  Keokuk,  then  a  settlement  of  about  a  dozen 
buildings.  Rev.  J.  A.  Clark  was  an  early  home-mission- 
ary preacher  at  Burlington  in  1838.  From  this  date 
church  growth  was  rapid  for  a  new  settlement.  In  six 
years  thirteen  Congregational  churches  had  been  planted 
and  about  the  same  number  of  Presbyterian.  Baptist 
churches  at  that  time  were  fewer  than  either,  although  in 
ten  years  more  they  numbered  fifty.  The  Methodists 
had  eighteen  ministers,  and  500  members,  the  Episco- 
paUans  three  ministers,  and  two  hundred  communicants. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  Asa  Turner  came  from  Illinois, 
and  entered  upon  his  work  as  pastor  of  the  Denmark 
church.     His  advent  was  destined  to  have  large  results. 

*  G.  F.  Magoun's  "Asa  Turner  and  his  Times,"  p.  179, 


Missouri,  Iowa  97 

By  common  adoption,  he  was  known,  and  is  still  affec- 
tionately remembered,  as  "Father"  Turner.  He  was 
indeed  the  patriarch  of  Congregational  Iowa,  and  in 
every  fiber  of  his  generous  frame,  he  was  a  born  pioneer. 
"Strong  mother-mt,  quick  and  keen  perception,  unfal- 
tering loyalty  to  truth  and  right,  fearlessness,  shrewd 
judgment  of  men  and  things,  practical  benevolence, 
tender,  childlike  piety,  and  unquestioning  faith,"  *  were 
the  qualities  that  gave  him  instant  and  abiding  hold 
upon  all  classes  of  people,  a  hold  that  never  weakened 
during  the  thirty  years  of  his  most  fruitful  ministry. 
His  love  for  Iowa  was  a  passion.  "I  see  but  one  objec- 
tion to  it,"  he  said.  "It  is  so  beautiful  there  might  be 
an  unwillingness  to  exchange  it  for  the  paradise  above." 

Among  the  first  to  be  associated  with  Turner,  was 
Reuben  Gaylord,  a  college  friend  at  Yale.  He  was  soon 
followed  by  Julius  A.  Reed,  another  graduate  of  Yale  of 
about  the  same  period.  To  these  three  men,  Congrega- 
tional Iowa  owes  much  of  the  remarkable  church  growth 
which  marked  the  two  decades  from  1838  to  1858.  More 
than  sixty  Congregational  churches  were  planted,  some 
of  them,  to-day,  the  strongest  churches  of  the  State. 

But  no  account  of  this  period  would  be  complete  with- 
out a  more  extended  notice  of  the  Iowa  Band,  which, 
among  all  the  missionary  bands  from  the  East,  must  ever 
hold  an  honorable  distinction.  It  was  fortunate  in  the 
character  of  its  members,  fortunate  again  in  the  field  of 
its  choice  and  in  the  time  of  its  entrance,  and,  it  may  be 
added,  especially  fortunate  in  its  forenmners,  Turner, 
Reed,  and  Gaylord,  Hitchcock,  Holbrook,  and  Emerson. 
The  names  of  the  Iowa  Band,  in  the  order  of  their  ages, 

'G.  F.  Magoiin's  "Asa  Turner  and  his  Times,"  p.  191. 


98  Leavening  the  Nation 

are  here  recorded:  Harvey  Adams  of  Vermont,  Edwin 
B.  Turner  of  Illinois,  Daniel  Lane  of  Maine,  Erastus 
Ripley  of  Connecticut,  James  J.  Hill  of  Maine,  Benja- 
min A.  Spaulding,  Alden  B.  Robbins,  and  Horace  Hutch- 
inson, all  of  Massachusetts,  Ephraim  Adams  of  New 
Hampshire,  Ebenezer  Alden  of  Massachusetts,  and 
William  Salter  of  New  York  City. 

The  first  suggestion  of  a  "  Band"  appears  to  have  come 
from  Horace  Hutchinson.  In  company  with  two  of  his 
seminary  class  at  Andover,  he  one  day  remarked:  "If 
we  and  some  others  could  only  go  out  together,  and  take 
possession  of  some  field,  where  we  could  have  the  ground 
and  work  together,  what  a  grand  thing  it  would  be ! "  It 
is  pathetic  to  remember  that  the  hps  which  were  the  first 
to  suggest  the  band  idea,  were  the  first  to  be  sealed  by 
death,  after  a  brief  ministry  of  two  years.  His  great 
work  was  the  casting  of  this  seed-thought  into  the  minds 
of  his  brethren. 

Out  of  the  suggestion  of  Hutchinson  grew  the  circle  of 
prayer  for  light  and  guidance.  There  were  difficulties  in 
finding  a  private  room  for  the  meetings,  which  were 
solved,  at  length,  by  the  choice  of  an  alcove  in  the  semi- 
nary library.  There  were  no  means  of  lighting,  and 
they  met  and  prayed  in  the  dark.  Occasionally  a  strange 
step  was  heard  entering,  but  who  it  was  would  be  un- 
known until  a  new  voice  was  heard  in  prayer.^  Con- 
ference mingled  with  those  petitions.  Ohio,  Michigan, 
Illinois,  Wisconsin,  and  even  Missouri  were  canvassed. 
When  Iowa  was  first  named,  little  could  be  said  because 
little  was  known,  until  Father  Turner's  breezy  letter,  in 
response  to  their  inquiries,  brought  them  needed  fight. 

*  "The  Iowa  Band,"  by  Ephraim  Adams,  p.  11. 


Missouri,  Iowa  99 

The  decision  being  made,  a  farewell  service  was  ap- 
pointed at  the  Old  South  Church,  Andover,  in  September, 
1843.  It  was  not  for  ordination;  they  wisely  decided 
to  postpone  that  to  the  time  of  their  active  entrance 
upon  the  work.  Dr.  Leonard  Bacon  came  from  New 
Haven  to  preach  the  farewell  sermon,  and  Dr.  Milton 
Badger  gave  them  the  charge  in  the  name  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Society. 

The  arrival  of  this  band  of  workers  in  Iowa,  in  the 
early  autumn  of  1843,  was  an  event  in  the  religious  his- 
tory of  the  Territory.  No  such  accession  of  missionary 
forces  at  one  time  had  ever  been  witnessed  in  any  west- 
ern State.  Their  ordination  at  Denmark  was  almost 
more  than  the  ordained  ministry  of  the  region  could  well 
manage.  There  were  not  enough  of  them  to  perform  all 
the  parts,  and  the  charge  to  the  candidates  had  to  be 
assigned  to  an  unordained  licentiate,  which  prompted 
one  of  them  to  remark,  "that  he  didn't  know  about 
being  charged  by  a  brother  who  wasn't  more  than  half 
charged  himself."  Judging  from  the  subsequent  exe- 
cution of  the  Iowa  Band,  that  charge  must  have  been 
exceptionally  good  and  strong. 

Unlike  the  Yale  Washington  Band  and  some  others, 
the  Iowa  brethren  made  no  attempt  to  perpetuate  their 
organization  upon  the  field.  The  last  meeting  of  the 
Band,  as  such,  was  in  Father  Turner's  study  the  day 
after  ordination.  From  there  they  scattered,  being 
guided  in  the  selection  of  their  fields  of  labor  by  the 
counsel  of  Turner  and  Reed.  Distances  were  great,  and 
the  opportunities  of  future  communion  infrequent;  but 
a  peculiar  bond  of  fellowship  survived,  and  still  survives, 
even  though  only  two  ^  of  the  original  eleven  are  left  to 
*  Ephraim  Adams,  William  Salter. 


loo  Leavening  the  Nation 

live  over  those  battles  and  victories  of  sixty  years,  which 
must  be  forever  associated  with  all  that  is  best  in  the 
history  of  Iowa.  "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  their 
combined  influence  has  given  character  not  only  to  their 
denomination  in  the  State  but  to  the  State  itself.  Los- 
ing their  Uves  they  found  them.  The  first  men  are  the 
historic  men.  They  themselves  have  been  built  into  the 
commonwealth  that  hes  between  the  two  great  rivers."  *■ 

The  work  of  the  Iowa  Band  has  never  been  exploited 
by  its  members.  Their  estimate  of  its  value  has  always 
been  singularly  modest  and  conservative.  Dr.  Ephraim 
Adams,  one  of  its  two  surviving  members,  has  told  its 
story  in  a  charming  volume,  but  he  has  left  others  to 
magnify  its  labors.  Dr.  Wilham  Salter,  the  other  sur- 
vivor, celebrated  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  pastorate 
at  Burlington  in  1896,  and  in  an  excellent  anniversary 
sermon  succeeded  in  making  no  allusion  to  the  Iowa 
Band.  Such  modesty  was  characteristic  of  its  spirit. 
From  the  beginning  its  members  cast  in  their  lot  with 
the  earlier  workers  on  the  ground  without  the  least 
assumption  of  leadership.  "They  did  all  the  good  they 
could,  and  made  no  fuss  about  it,"  and  their  reward 
has  been  great  in  the  love  and  gratitude  of  the  Iowa 
churches. 

Let  others  praise  them.  Says  Dr.  Wilhston  Walker: 
"Through  their  influence,  and  that  of  Turner,  Congre- 
gationalism took  deep  root  in  Iowa  while  the  State  was 
still  in  the  gristle."  Says  Dr.  Dunning:  "The  churches 
increased  but  slowly  in  numbers  till  the  work  began  of 
the  Iowa  Band.  They  said,  '  If  each  one  of  us  can  only 
plant  one  good  and  permanent  church,  and  all  together 

*J.E.  Roy  in  Dunning's  "Congregationalists  in  America,"  p. 
438. 


Missouri,  Iowa  loi 

build  a  college,  what  a  work  that  will  be ! '  They  nobly 
fulfilled  their  mission." 

One  peculiar  service  performed  by  the  band  deserves 
passing  mention  in  any  review  of  Iowa's  religious  history. 
Says  Dr.  Julius  A.  Reed:  ''In  addition  to  their  various 
labors  there  was  one  thing  which  the  providence  of  God 
permitted  them,  rather  than  their  brethren,  to  accom- 
pHsh.  They  settled  the  question  that  Congregational- 
ism was  to  become  a  power  in  Iowa,  indeed,  in  the  West, 
and  was  to  enjoy  the  sympathy  and  aid  of  eastern 
churches.  It  was  claimed  that  western  Congregation- 
alists  who  refused  to  become  Presbyterians  were  un- 
sound in  the  faith  or  were  'radicals,'  a  synonym  for 
everything  bad.  But  the  band  represented  six  States 
and  eight  colleges;  were  graduates  of  Andover  whose 
soundness  in  the  faith  none  questioned;  making  their 
journey  westward,  and  speaking  on  the  Sabbath  at 
Buffalo,  they  attracted  attention  throughout  the  North, 
as  a  Hke  party  now  would  if  on  their  way  to  Africa.  It 
was  dangerous  to  call  them  cranks,  and  a  good  share  of 
New  England  at  once  gave  their  confidence  and  sym- 
pathy to  Iowa  Congregationalism.  Their  coming  to 
Iowa  had  this  effect." 

Only  one  of  the  band  appears  to  have  spoken  freely  of 
this  striking  feature  of  their  work,  and  his  words,  coming 
as  they  do  from  the  senior  member  of  the  little  company, 
in  his  eighty-eighth  year,  have  impressive  force.  Says 
Dr.  Harvey  Adams:  "The  eleven  young  men  who  con- 
stituted the  Iowa  Band,  remained  without  changing 
their  denominational  relations.  This  one  fact  encour- 
aged others  to  come.  There  were  fifteen  Congrega- 
tional churches  in  Iowa  when  we  came,  but  they  soon 
began  to  increase  here  and  elsewhere  in  the  West  more 


I02  Leavening  the  Nation 

rapidly.  Objections  to  their  organization  had  ceased. 
In  1843,  the  great  body  of  our  churches  was  in  New 
England.  Fifty  years  later  more  than  three  fifths  were 
outside  of  New  England.  The  band  was  providentially 
used  to  inaugurate  a  change  in  home-missionary  man- 
agement by  which  our  churches  were  multiplied  many 
times  faster  than  ever  before." 

From  such  testimony  it  is  made  clear  that  not  the  least 
of  the  great  services  rendered  by  the  Iowa  Band  is  the 
part  they  were  enabled  to  bear  in  restoring  Congrega- 
tional self-consciousness  to  the  churches  of  New  Eng- 
land. The  West  would  be  vastly  poorer  in  its  rehgious 
and  educational  life  but  for  that  timely  renaissance,  and 
chief  among  the  agencies  to  which  that  recovery  was  due, 
is  this  band  of  Andover  pilgrims,  who  were  directed  to 
the  western  bank  of  the  Mississippi  in  1843  with  the 
Pilgrim  polity  as  well  as  the  Pilgrim  faith  glowing  in 
their  hearts.  "After  the  Band,"  says  Dr.  T.  O.  Douglass, 
"  came  scores  and  hundreds  of  other  missionaries  of  hke 
faith  and  consecration,  by  whose  coming  deserts  have 
blossomed,  and  by  whose  influence,  in  large  degree,  Iowa 
has  become  the  peerless  State  she  is  to-day."  ^ 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  sixty  years  of  home-mission- 
ary culture  in  Iowa,  one  third  of  her  people  are  found  in 
the  membership  of  her  churches,  a  larger  ratio  than  in 
Maine,  or  New  Hampshire,  or  Vermont,  and  not  far  be- 
hind that  of  Massachusetts,  and  Connecticut.  That  all 
denominations  have  shared  generously  in  the  work,  and 
reaped  richly  of  the  reward,  is  seen  in  the  fact  that  Metho- 
dists are  able  to  call  the  roll  of  1,600  churches.  Baptists 
500,  Presbyterians  520,  Congregationahsts  300,  Episco- 

*  Seventy-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Congregational  Home 
Missionary  Society,  p.  85. 


Missouri,  Iowa  103 

palians  100,  and  the  Reformed  Church  about  70.  Not 
without  reason,  in  the  moral  strength  and  stabiUty  of 
her  citizens,  Iowa  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  "Ver- 
mont of  the  West,"  a  name  that  reflects  equal  honor  upon 
both  States. 


VIII 

THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE— KANSAS     AND 
NEBRASKA 

The  reader  who  is  curious  to  place  his  finger  upon  the 
geographical  center  of  the  United  States,  will  find  that 
point  within  the  two  compact  squares  occupied  by  the 
States  of  Nebraska  and  Kansas.  A  middle  line  drawn 
from  north  to  south  will  cross  a  similar  line  from  east  to 
west,  not  far  from  the  city  of  Omaha,  Lines  drawn  from 
the  extreme  northeast  to  the  southwest  and  from  the 
northwest  to  the  southeast  will  cross  each  other  not  far 
from  the  same  point.  These  are  merely  geographical 
accidents.  But  to  many  thoughtful  minds,  it  has 
seemed  more  than  an  accident  that  the  spot  where  all 
territorial  lines  thus  bisect  should  have  been  destined  for 
the  trial  and  settlement  of  an  issue,  which  more  than  any 
other  in  our  history,  has  affected  the  welfare  of  the 
nation,  from  its  center  to  its  outermost  rim. 

A  few  facts  simply  stated  are  necessary  to  the  histori- 
cal setting  of  home  missions,  as  they  relate  to  these  two 
commonwealths.  To  older  readers  they  are  sufficiently 
familiar;  it  is  for  the  benefit  of  a  younger  generation, 
that  has  been  born  since  1860,  that  the  story  is  briefly 
rehearsed. 

In  the  summer  of  1821,  Missouri  was  admitted  to  the 
Union  as  a  slave  State,  but  with  the  sacred  stipulation 

104 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  105 

that  all  other  territory  north  of  36°  30'  should  be  for- 
ever free.  This  was  the  "Missouri  Compromise."  For 
thirty  years  it  continued  to  be  law,  until,  in  the  spring 
of  1850,  under  the  lead  of  Senators  Dixon  of  Kentucky 
and  Douglas  of  Illinois,  the  Missouri  Compromise  was  set 
aside,  and  the  principle  was  substituted  that  the  people 
of  the  Territories  have  plenary  jurisdiction  over  all  their 
domestic  institutions,  slavery  especially  included.  This 
was  the  "repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,"  and 
affected,  as  it  was  intended  to  affect,  the  question  of 
slavery  in  the  proposed  new  Territories  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska. 

At  once  the  whole  land  was  torn  with  a  passionate 
discussion.  The  aggressive  purpose  of  the  slave  power 
was  plain  and  undisputed.  Whatever  new  territory 
should  in  the  future  be  added  to  the  national  domain  was 
to  decide  for  itself  the  issue  of  slavery.  "  Popular  Sov- 
ereignty" was  the  sounding  name  of  the  new  doctrine 
and  "Squatter  Sovereignty"  was  what  it  meant.  For 
if  new  Territories  were  to  be  made  slave  or  free  by  a 
popular  vote,  then  the  Border  States  were  bound  to  rush 
in  voters  for  the  settlement  of  that  issue,  and  the  more 
distant  and  free  States  were  bound,  by  legitimate  immi- 
gration, to  meet  and  overpower  them. 

Such  was  the  disturbing  issue  which  the  slave  power, 
eleven  years  before  the  Civil  War,  chose  to  thrust  upon 
the  Nation.  Mr.  Douglas,  its  author,  well  understood 
how  it  would  be  received  at  the  North.  "  I  shall  prob- 
ably be  hung  in  effigy,"  he  said  in  a  speech  before  Con- 
gress, and  a  few  years  later  he  declared  in  another  speech 
at  Springfield,  Ohio,  "In  those  days  I  could  travel  from 
Boston  to  Chicago  by  the  light  of  my  own  effigies."  The 
principle  of  popular  sovereignty  being  thus  established 


io6  Leavening  the  Nation 

by  law,  "the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill"  was  passed  and  the 
great  struggle  began. 

Whom  the  gods  would  destroy  they  first  dement. 
The  immediate  effect  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  legislation 
was  startling.  "It  utterly  overthrew  the  Whig  party 
and  reduced  the  Democratic  party  from  a  national  to  a 
sectional  rank."  Four  years  later,  in  1856,  a  Republican 
party  at  the  North  which  had  no  existence  in  1852,  had 
grown  strong  enough  to  cast  1,300,000  votes.  Even 
then  the  blind  eyes  of  the  slave  power  could  not  read  the 
handwriting  on  the  wall.  Reforms  never  go  back. 
From  the  Free  Soil  to  the  Republican  party  was  easy  and 
natural.  From  Frankhn  Pierce  and  James  Buchanan 
to  Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  necessity.  Rebellion,  seces- 
sion, war,  emancipation,  followed  in  logical  order,  and 
the  final  outcome  of  popular  sovereignty  in  Kansas  was 
a  new  nation,  purged  of  slavery  in  every  part. 

Such  were  the  brief  steps  by  which  the  slave  power  in 
America,  afflicted  with  judicial  blindness,  rushed  upon 
self-destruction;  and  looking  calmly  back  upon  the 
theater  where  the  last  act  began,  we  can  hardly  resist  the 
conviction,  that  without  the  Kansas-Nebraska  chapter 
in  our  national  history,  the  United  States  might  to-day 
be  still  trying  "the  dubious  experiment  of  building  up  a 
nation  half  slave  and  half  free — a  house  divided  against 
itself. 

Previous  to  its  organization  as  a  Territory,  Kansas  had 
attracted  little  of  the  westward  tide  of  migration  for 
permanent  settlers.  It  was  scarcely  more  than  a  thor- 
oughfare for  emigrant  wagons  bound  for  New  Mexico,  or 
the  Pacific  coast,  filled  with  a  "heterogeneous  intermit- 
tent mob  trooping  across  the  plains  without  stopping."  '■ 

'Spring's  "Kansas"  (American  Commonwealth  Series),  p.  21. 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  107 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  Kansas  had  been  reserved, 
intact,  for  the  express  and  unhindered  trial  of  the  ex- 
periment of  popular  sovereignty,  to  which  the  Nation 
had  been  challenged  by  the  slave  power  of  the  South. 

The  first  comers  (they  can  hardly  be  called  settlers) 
were  from  over  the  Missouri  border.  They  were  in  haste 
and  were  not  proposing  a  lengthened  stay.  To  notch  a 
few  trees  or  arrange  a  half  dozen  rails  on  the  ground  and 
call  it  a  cabin,  to  post  a  scrawl  on  a  tree  threatening  to 
shoot  all  intermeddlers/  these  were  the  rude  methods  of 
the  squatter.  His  home  was  in  Missouri ;  he  had  run  over 
into  Kansas  to  vote  and  fight  for  slavery.  For  several 
months  this  element  had  things  their  own  way,  undis- 
turbed, and  a  good  degree  of  confidence  grew  up  both 
in  Missouri,  and  in  the  entire  South,  that  the  Douglas 
specific  would  work,  and  that  Kansas  was  marked  out 
for  a  slave  State.  Indeed,  that  fear,  mingled  with  de- 
spair, prevailed  widely  in  New  England.  Even  the 
Abolitionists  confessed  in  their  chief  organ,  ''the  fate  of 
Kansas  is  sealed." 

But  there  were  a  few  stout  hearts  that  kept  courage, 
and  under  the  lead  of  such  men  as  Eli  Thayer,  Amos  A, 
Lawrence,  Dr.  Samuel  Cabot,  John  Lowell,  Nathan 
Durfee,  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  Edward  Everett  Hale,  Horace 
Bushnell,  and  Benjamin  Silliman,  an  Emigration  Com- 
pany was  organized  in  New  England  "for  the  planting 
of  free-labor  towns  in  Kansas."  Ten  companies  of  emi- 
grants were  despatched  in  1854-55,  comprising  about 
1,500  souls,  and  $150,000  had  been  raised  and  expended 
for  their  equipment. 

These  were  "the  unholy  combinations  in  New  Eng- 

1  Spring's  "Kansas,"  p,  26, 


1 08  Leavening  the  Nation 

land/'  "the  hot-bed  plants,"  so  bitterly  denounced  by- 
Mr.  Douglas,  and  Senator  Green  of  Missouri,  These  sons 
of  New  England  planted  Wabaunsee,  Osawatomie,  Man- 
hattan, Topeka,  and  Lawrence,  of  which  the  chief  was 
Lawrence.  The  slave  elements  from  Missouri  estab- 
lished Leavenworth,  Atchison,  and  Lecompton,  which 
latter  they  made  their  capital.  Between  these  two  par- 
ties the  great  issue  was  now  joined,  and  the  whole  nation 
looked  on  with  intensest  interest.  Something  of  the 
spirit  of  the  North  at  this  time  is  reflected  in  the  words 
of  William  H.  Seward  uttered  in  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate: "Come  on  then,  gentlemen  of  the  slave  States! 
Since  there  is  no  escaping  your  challenge,  I  accept  it  in 
behalf  of  freedom.  We  will  compete  for  the  virgin  soil 
of  Kansas,  and  God  give  the  victory  to  the  side  that  is 
stronger  in  numbers  as  it  is  in  the  right." 

The  struggle  over  "bleeding  Kansas"  continued  three 
years,  marked  by  illegal  voting,  violence,  arson,  and 
bloodshed.  Governor  Charles  Robinson  headed  the  Free 
Soil  party  politically,  and  his  house  was  burned  to  the 
ground.  John  Brown  led  in  the  field  with  the  fury  of  a 
fanatic,  and  became  the  terror  of  border  ruffians,  since 
he  had  no  scruples  about  fighting  the  devil  with  fire. 
The  slavery  party  elected  their  own  men  by  intimidation 
and  violence,  formed  a  constitution  including  slavery, 
and  enacted  laws  for  its  defence.  The  free  labor  party 
framed  a  constitution  prohibiting  slavery,  and  elected 
their  own  legislature  and  State  officers.  Their  leaders 
were  arrested,  and  indicted  for  treason;  their  news- 
papers were  destroyed  or  suppressed,  and  United  States 
troops  were  called  out  to  disperse  their  legislature. 

So  for  three  years  the  conflict  raged  with  victories  on 
both  sides,  the  North  furnishing  emigrants,  Bibles,  and 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  109 

Sharp's  rifles,  and  the  South  contributing  ruffians,  blud- 
geons, and  bowe  knives,  until  in  1858,  the  contest  was 
virtually  settled  by  the  rejection  of  the  slavery  constitu- 
tion at  the  polls.  Three  years  later  Kansas  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  Union,  a  free  State,  and  immediately  there 
followed  the  greater  struggle,  to  which  that  of  Kansas 
was  only  a  preliminary  skirmish,  and  by  which  the 
slavery  issue  was  finally  and  forever  settled  in  America. 

Home  missions  in  Kansas  began  with  its  beginning. 
In  1854,  Rev.  S.  Y.  Lum  preached  the  first  sermon  ever 
heard  by  the  white  people  of  the  Territory.  He  came 
under  a  broad  commission  from  the  American  Home 
Missionary  Society,  "to  proclaim  the  gospel  in  Kansas," 
and  like  Abraham  he  went  forth  not  knowing  whither. 
Providence  led  him  to  Lawrence.  A  month  after  his 
arrival  Plymouth  Church  was  organized  with  seven 
members,  and  is  the  oldest  church  of  any  denomination 
in  Kansas.  The  Pioneer  Hotel  was  its  first  sanctuary 
and  the  people  were  gathered  for  service  by  the  ringing 
of  a  large  dinner-bell. 

In  1856,  while  the  historical  struggle  was  at  its  height, 
four  young  men  in  Andover  Theological  Seminary  or- 
ganized a  "Kansas  Band."  They  were  Sylvester  D. 
Storrs,  Grosvenor  C.  Morse,  Roswell  D.  Parker,  and 
Richard  Cordley.  Two  of  them,  Storrs  and  Morse,  were 
born  and  educated  in  New  Hampshire,  while  Cordley  and 
Parker  came  from  Michigan,  in  the  old  Northwest  Terri- 
tory. For  two  years  a  Kansas  prayer-meeting  was  held 
every  Wednesday  evening  in  Storrs'  room,  and  was 
largely  attended  by  the  students.  In  the  summer  of 
1857,  the  four  were  graduated,  and  ready  under  the  com- 
mission of  the  Society,  "to  preach  the  gospel  in  Kansas/' 
with  a  pledged  salar}^  of 


no  Leavening  the  Nation 

Storrs  began  at  Quindaro,  and  afterwards  served 
churches  in  Wyandotte  and  Atchison.  But  his  great 
work  was  as  superintendent  of  missions  in  the  State,  for 
twelve  years,  during  which  he  organized  more  than  one 
hundred  Congregational  churches.  Parker  labored  suc- 
cessfully in  Leavenworth,  Wyandotte,  and  Manhattan. 
Morse  estabhshed  himself  at  Emporia,  then  the  extreme 
frontier,  and  after  building  up  a  strong  church,  was  made 
Superintendent  of  Pubhc  Instruction  and  is  remembered 
as  "the  father  of  the  State  Normal  College."  Cordley 
was  stationed  at  Lawrence  as  pastor  of  the  church  or- 
ganized by  Mr.  Lum,  where  he  still  ministers,  having 
been  twice  recalled  from  other  churches  to  the  people  of 
his  first  love. 

These  four  men  are  the  fathers  of  Congregational 
Kansas.  They  all  took  part  in  the  early  struggle  for 
which  they  had  been  ordained  by  two  years  of  constant 
prayer  on  Andover  Hill.  Their  mark  is  found  on  every 
forward  religious  movement  of  the  State.  Richard 
Cordley  alone  remains  to  tell  the  story  of  home-mission- 
ary beginnings  in  that  troubled  Territory,  and  the  reader 
will  look  in  vain  to  find  a  more  graphic  picture  of  those 
early  conditions  than  the  following  from  the  pen  of  Dr. 
Cordley : 

"The  first  sanctuary  of  Plymouth  Church,  Lawrence, 
was  the  'Old  Hay  Tent,'  consisting  of  two  rows  of  poles 
brought  together  at  the  top,  and  the  sides  thatched  with 
prairie  hay.  The  room  was  also  used  as  a  general  sleep- 
ing apartment,  the  trunks,  bunks,  and  boxes  of  the 
lodgers  serving  for  seats  on  Sunday.  The  minister  had 
to  build  his  own  house.  It  was  built  of  shakes.  These 
were  spUt  from  logs,  and  nailed  to  a  frame,  covering  sides 
and  roof.     It  was  well  ventilated,  but  not  blizzard-proof. 


Cyrus  Dickson,  D.D. 

Corresponding    Secretary  of  the  Board    of   Home  Missions    of    the 

Presbyterian  Church  from  1S70  to  1881. 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  iii 

A  blanket  of  snow  on  the  bed,  and  a  carpet  of  snow  on  the 
floor  were  no  unusual  thing  in  the  morning.  The  in- 
mates wore  their  winter  wraps  while  cooking  over  a  red- 
hot  stove,  and  water  often  froze  on  their  clothing  while 
their  faces  tingled  with  the  heat  of  the  fire.  But  it  was 
'hke  priest,  like  people.'  They  all  fared  alike,  and 
there  was  no  murmuring. 

"  During  the  border  ruffian  troubles  of  1855-56,  Mr. 
Lum  took  his  place  with  the  rest  in  the  defense  of  the 
town,  and  bore  his  full  portion  of  the  burden  and  the 
loss.  His  horses  were  stolen  by  the  ruffians,  and  they 
once  took  him  prisoner,  and  threatened  to  hang  him,  but 
finally  released  him  without  harm.  These  disturbances 
continued  for  three  years,  during  wliich  time  the  town 
was  thrice  beseiged  by  armed  Missourians,  and  once  was 
sacked  and  pillaged.  The  church  kept  on  as  it  could, 
meeting  sometimes  in  a  Httle  close  room,  where  they 
roasted,  and  sometimes  in  an  open  shanty,  where  they 
froze.  Often  they  could  not  meet  at  all,  and  often  the 
men  were  called  out  during  service  by  an  alarm  of  com- 
ing danger.  In  the  spring  of  1857,  Mr.  Lum  resigned  on 
account  of  ill  health,  and  the  church  was  pastorless  for 
several  months. 

"  I  did  not  go  to  Kansas  till  late  in  the  autimin.  Reach- 
ing Jefferson  City,  the  end  of  the  railway,  November  19, 
I  took  passage  in  a  steamboat  for  Quindaro.  It  turned 
bitterly  cold  that  night,  and  with  low  water,  high  wind, 
and  a  river  full  of  floating  ice,  the  steamer  made  slow 
progress.  In  four  days  she  only  made  eighty  miles, 
when  the  captain  gave  up  the  trip  and  put  us  ashore. 
We  hired  a  mule  team  to  take  us  the  rest  of  the  way. 
Starting  Monday  morning  in  the  bitter  cold,  we  ended 
our  journey  the  last  of  the  week  in  a  drenching  rain. 


112  Leavening  the  Nation 

But  troubles  were  not  yet  over.  There  was  no  public 
conveyance  to  Lawrence  and  I  hired  a  colored  teamster 
to  haul  me  and  my  goods  over.  We  started  Tuesday 
morning  from  Quindaro,  and  reached  Lawrence  about 
noon  Wednesday. 

"  The  town  seemed  smaller  than  I  had  expected  to  find 
it,  but  I  soon  found  it  was  not  so  small  as  it  seemed. 
Every  house  and  shanty,  sod  cabin  and  tent  was  filled  to 
its  utmost  capacity.  They  were  not  the  driftwood  of  the 
frontier,  but  people  who  had  come  with  a  purpose. 
Business  and  professional  men  had  left  their  business,  and 
come  to  this  far  country  under  the  inspiration  of  an  idea. 
College  students  just  graduated  or  before  graduation, 
had  turned  their  backs  upon  the  career  they  had  marked 
out  for  themselves,  and  come  to  Kansas  at  the  call  of 
freedom.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  college 
graduates  and  men  of  culture  driving  a  team  in  the  street, 
or  chopping  logs  in  the  woods,  or  living  in  a  shake  shanty, 
'far  out  upon  the  prairie.'  Like  all  men  consecrated 
to  an  idea,  they  were  ready  to  make  sacrifices  for  it.  At 
whatever  cost  of  toil  or  treasure,  or  life,  Kansas  must  be 
a  free  State.  The  town  was  so  full  that  my  study  for 
three  weeks  was  in  a  carpenter's  shop,  and  I  prepared  my 
sermons  with  three  carpenters  hammering  away  a  few 
feet  from  me.  I  slept  meanwhile  in  the  unfinished  gar- 
ret of  the  same  building.  But  I  was  no  worse  off  than 
other  people,  and  had  no  occasion  to  find  fault. 

"  Plymouth  Church  was  three  years  old,  and  had  twen- 
ty-two resident  members.  They  had  begun  to  build  a 
house  of  worship.  It  was  of  stone,  substantial  and  well 
built,  and  of  good  size.  They  had  inclosed  the  building, 
put  in  the  windows  and  laid  the  floor,  and  then  were 
compelled  to  stop  for  want  of  funds.    The  windows  had 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  113 

been  put  in  without  casings,  the  walls  and  ceilings  were 
without  plaster,  and  the  doorway  had  been  closed  up 
with  rough  boards,  one  board  being  left  to  swing  for  an 
entrance.  The  winter  winds  used  to  laugh  at  these 
loose  boards,  and  run  in  through  the  cracks,  and  cool  the 
ardor  of  the  congregation.  The  roof  was  said  to  be  a 
good  one,  but  in  spite  of  that  the  snow  would  sift  through 
and  powder  the  heads  of  the  worshippers.  The  seats 
were  rough  benches,  and  around  the  walls  a  row  of  seats 
had  been  made  by  placing  boards  on  nail-kegs  and  boxes. 
The  pulpit  platform  was  simply  a  pile  of  rough  lumber 
which  was  forever  threatening  to  tip  over  and  spill  the 
preacher  out.  It  required  careful  balancing  to  keep 
one's  poise  on  such  a  foundation.  But  the  church  was 
as  good  as  the  houses  the  people  lived  in,  and  nobody 
complained  of  it  or  made  that  an  excuse  for  absence. 
The  congregations  were  good  and  very  inspiring.  It 
was  a  wide-awake  lot  of  people  who  found  their  way  to 
Kansas  at  that  time,  and  they  were  as  wide  awake  in 
church  as  anjrwhere  else. 

"  There  was  not  much  money  in  the  country,  and  we 
finished  our  church  by  piecemeal,  a  httle  each  year. 
Our  first  effort  was  to  put  in  the  outside  door  and  'stop 
the  draft.'  This  cost  only  thirty  dollars  but  it  required 
the  canvass  of  the  whole  community  to  secure  it.  Then 
came  the  plastering,  the  casing  of  the  windows,  the  gal- 
lery, and  the  pulpit,  and  finally  the  pews,  all  occupying 
five  years.  In  1862  the  building  was  complete,  and  the 
church  assumed  self-support.  In  1861  the  war  broke 
out,  and  Kansas  was  in  the  focus  of  it.  One  call  for  troops 
followed  another,  and  regiment  after  regiment  marched 
away.  From  a  population  of  100,000,  twenty  thousand 
men  went  forth  to  war.     In  some  neighborhoods,  not  an 


114  Leavening  the  Nation 

able-bodied  man  remained,  and  in  some  churches,  not  a 
single  male  member  was  left  at  home. 

"In  the  midst  of  the  war  came  'Quantrell's  Raid,' 
August  21,  1863.  In  four  hours  three  hundred  bush- 
whackers laid  the  town  in  ashes,  and  left  one  hundred 
and  fifty  dead  upon  the  streets.  There  remained  more 
than  eighty  newly  made  widows,  and  two  hundred  and 
fifty  newly  made  orphans.  Plymouth  Church  suffered 
heavily.  Sixteen  members  of  the  congregation  were 
killed,  and  nearly  all  the  members  were  made  homeless 
and  penniless.  The  Sabbath  after,  the  remnant  gathered 
in  the  church.  There  were  men  in  their  shirt-sleeves 
that  had  not  saved  a  coat,  women  in  sunbonnets  and 
shawls  and  children  in  whatever  they  could  be  wrapped. 
One  might  say  that  the  entire  wardrobe  of  the  congre- 
gation was  in  the  church  that  morning.  Rev.  G.  C. 
Morse  of  Emporia,  whose  brother-in-law  was  among  the 
dead,  was  present  and  conducted  the  service.  Neither 
of  us  felt  like  saying  anything,  and  no  one  felt  that  any- 
thing needed  to  be  said.  Mr.  Morse  read  Psalm  LXXIX, 
which  seemed  to  have  been  written  for  the  occasion,  and 
then  he  offered  a  prayer  and  dismissed  the  congregation. 

"  The  town  was  rebuilt  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  the 
church  slowly  recovered.  The  Home  Missionary  Society 
came  promptly  to  the  rescue,  and  made  the  church  a 
grant  which  carried  them  through  one  year,  when  they 
again  took  upon  themselves  the  whole  burden. 

"  The  spiritual  progress  of  the  church  during  these  years 
was  very  slow,  but  there  was  real  gain.  The  prayer- 
meetings  were  held  in  private  homes  and  were  small,  but 
were  sometimes  marked  by  real  power.  The  excite- 
ments had  drawn  Christians  away  from  spiritual  things, 
and  many  had  become  indifferent.     As  the  interest  in- 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  115 

creased  they  returned  to  their  places.  One  by  one  they 
would  drop  into  our  meetings  and  add  themselves  to 
our  effective  force.  There  was  no  general  revival,  but 
every  now  and  then  some  one  heard  the  word  and  came 
forward  and  acknowledged  Christ.  The  pastor's  wife, 
meanwhile,  met  the  girls  every  week  in  the  parlor,  and 
in  ten  years,  between  thirty  and  forty  of  these  were 
added  to  the  church,  and  have  been  effective  workers 
for  Christ  in  different  sections  of  the  State. 

"  When  peace  returned,  the  progress  was  more  rapid. 
In  1867  a  more  general  revival  began  to  manifest  itself, 
which  continued  in  varying  degrees  for  several  years. 
It  is  not  easy  to  say  just  what  occasioned  it.  It  was  the 
culmination  of  all  that  went  before,  the  harvest  of  many 
seasons  of  sowing.  A  new  church  now  became  a  neces- 
sity and  the  present  edifice  was  erected  at  a  cost  of 
$45,000." 

We  have  allowed  Dr.  Cordley  to  tell  the  story  at  some 
length.  It  might  be  duplicated  in  many  other  towns 
and  cities  of  Kansas,  but  would  gain  nothing  by  repeti- 
tion. The  home-missionary  problem  was  entirely  new 
in  the  history  of  western  immigration.  In  other  States 
the  hard  conditions  of  nature  were  to  be  overcome.  In 
Kansas  the  inhumanity  of  man  was  added.  In  this 
respect  the  settlement  of  Kansas  resembles  most  nearly 
the  experience  of  the  Pilgrim  fathers  in  the  Plymouth 
woods,  who  went  to  church  every  Sabbath  with  the 
Bible  in  one  hand,  and  the  musket  in  the  other,  ready  to 
build  up  a  Christian  colony  with  the  one,  and  to  defend 
themselves  against  barbarous  enemies  with  the  other. 
Upon  the  early  settlers  of  Kansas  devolved  the  same 
double  burden,  and  to  their  honor  be  it  said  they  proved 
themselves  to  be  worthy  sons  of  honored  sires. 


li6  Leavening  the  Nation 

Baptist  home  missions  began  in  the  same  troubled 
period,  two  missionaries  being  established  in  1854. 
The  growth  of  the  denomination  under  home-missionary 
culture  has  been  extremely  gratifying.  More  than  six 
hundred  churches  have  been  planted  with  a  membership 
of  35,000.  Methodists  have  been  even  more  successful, 
with  their  fifteen  hundred  churches  and  100,000  commu- 
nicants. Presbyterian  organizations  number  more  than 
five  hundred,  and  Episcopal  more  than  one  hundred. 
In  spite  of  its  bloody  and  tumultuous  beginning,  Kansas 
by  faithful  home-missionary  labor  ranks  high  among 
the  States  in  the  percentage  of  its  rehgious  forces,  one 
quarter  of  her  people  being  professed  Christians.  That 
result  has  not  been  accomplished  without  a  generous 
outlay  of  money.  "  Nearly  every  Congregational  church 
in  the  State  has  been  aided  by  the  Home  Missionary 
Society.  Its  donations  to  the  State  aggregate  about 
three  quarters  of  a  million  dollars.  The  investment  was 
wise,  for  the  spiritual  fruitage  is  abundant,  ever  increas- 
ing and  of  eternal  value,  three  fourths  of  the  churches 
having  become  self-supporting."  * 

Nebraska,  made  a  Territory  at  the  same  time  with 
Kansas,  was  fortunate  in  escaping  the  peculiar  trials  that 
beset  her  more  southern  sister.  Her  stake  in  the  issue 
of  popular  sovereignty  was  the  same,  but  to  Kansas  fell 
the  brunt  of  the  battle  with  slavery.  She  was  happy 
also  in  her  free  State  neighbor  Iowa,  on  the  east.  No 
border  ruffians  troubled  her  from  that  quarter.  Hence 
the  settlement  of  Nebraska  proceeded  in  an  orderly  way, 
and  according  to  the  natural  methods  of  western  immi- 
gration.    Yet  for  some  reason  it  was  not  very  rapid  at 

'  L.  Payson  Broad,  Seventy-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Con- 
gregational Home  Missionary  Society,  p.  89. 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  117 

first.  Its  soil  is  no  less  productive  than  Kansas,  but  its 
climate  is  more  northern.  Moreover,  the  eyes  of  the 
nation  were  concentrated  upon  Kansas.  In  1858  only 
a  few  Nebraska  settlements  had  been  started  on  the 
Nemaha,  Saline,  Big  Blue,  and  Elkhorn,  and  "all  would 
not  have  made  one  good-sized  town."  ^  The  main  tide 
of  western  travel  at  this  time,  but  not  later,  was  more  to 
the  south.  As  late  even  as  1872  the  London  Times 
openly  discouraged  emigration  to  Nebraska,  urging  the 
Red  River  country  instead. 

The  city  of  Omaha,  however,  was  a  marked  exception 
to  all  these  conditions.  In  1854  it  had  one  log  house, 
two  years  later  it  had  a  population  of  700.  That  was 
only  a  beginning.  From  a  log  cabin  in  1854,  to  a  popu- 
lation of  145,000  in  1894;  from  60,000  in  1885,  to  140,000 
in  1890,  constitute  a  record  of  growth  unparallelled  by 
any  other  city  in  the  nation.  Its  natural  location  has 
much  to  do  with  this  phenomenal  progress.  Omaha  lies 
in  the  very  gateway  to  the  West,  at  a  middle  point  be- 
tween the  Atlantic  and  Pacific.  Thirteen  trunk  lines  of 
railway  enter  the  city  and  radiate  from  it  to  every  quar- 
ter of  the  land.  Thus  by  necessity  it  becomes  a  great 
distributing  center,  as  well  as  the  metropolis  of  a  rich 
agricultural  and  manufacturing  State. 

Among  the  missionary  pioneers  of  Nebraska,  Reuben 
Gaylord  was  an  honored  leader.  Born  among  the  hills 
of  Norfolk,  Connecticut;  graduated  from  Yale  College 
in  the  class  of  1834,  an  instructor  for  three  years  in 
lUinois  College,  licensed  to  preach  in  1838,  an  early  appli- 
cant for  a  home-missionary  commission  to  Iowa,  it  was 
in  that  State  that  he  and  Asa  Turner  laid  foundations, 
prepared  the  way  of  the  Iowa  Band  and  helped  to  plan 
'S.  A.  Drake,  "The  Making  of  the  Great  West,"  p.  322. 


ii8  Leavening  the  Nation 

Iowa  College.  For  seventeen  years  he  made  full  proof 
of  his  Iowa  ministry,  and  having  established  his  work 
there,  turned  with  the  instinct  of  a  pioneer,  to  the  harder 
frontier  of  Nebraska.  Some  men  seem  born  for  rough- 
ing it,  and  need  the  buffeting  of  stormy  conditions  to 
call  out  their  full  strength.  Such  a  man  was  Reuben 
Gaylord. 

In  the  midwinter  of  1855,  he  started  in  a  two-seated 
wagon,  with  his  family,  five  in  all,  one  of  them  a  babe  of 
ten  months,  to  cross  the  State  of  Iowa,  300  miles.  Over 
roads  deep  with  mud,  across  unbridged  streams  made 
almost  unapproachable  by  steep  banks,  against  piercing 
winter  winds,  in  the  face  of  intense  cold,  through  a  coun- 
try poorly  supplied  with  hotels,  and  these  so  crowded 
that  accomodation  was  often  denied,  losing  a  wheel  now 
and  then,  but  never  losing  heart,  this  brave  man  and  his 
brave  family  reached  the  Missouri  River  opposite  Omaha, 
on  Forefathers'  Day,  1855,  devoutly  grateful  to  be 
counted  worthy  of  suffering  with  the  Pilgrims,  if  he 
might  thus  extend  their  faith  and  principles. 

On  Christmas  day  the  missionary  and  his  family  crossed 
the  river  on  the  ice,  and  began  their  new  life  in  a  half- 
furnished,  wholly  unplastered  house  set  up  on  four  blocks, 
weather  below  zero.  What  faith  these  men  had  in  the 
power  of  their  message  and  in  the  certainty  of  their 
mission ! 

At  the  post-ofhce  in  Omaha  Mr.  Gaylord  found  his 
commission,  with  a  pledge  of  $600  salary,  not  one  half  of 
what  it  actually  cost  him  to  maintain  his  family.  The 
only  religious  organization  in  the  place,  at  that  time,  was 
a  Methodist  class  of  six  members.  The  reception  of  the 
missionary  was  scarcely  warmer  than  the  weather.  The 
people  were  worldly  and  half  crazed  with  the  fever  of 


Kansas  and  Nebraska  119 

speculation.  There  is  one  living  to-day  who  relates 
how,  passing  by  the  rough  chapel  where  he  preached,  he 
heard  the  voice  of  a  man,  in  prayer,  and  looking  in 
through  the  window,  saw  Reuben  Gaylord,  on  his  knees 
in  the  httle  pulpit  praying  God  to  send  him  an  audience.^ 
It  is  not  too  much  to  beheve  that  the  beautiful  edifice 
and  the  flourishing  First  Church  of  Omaha  are  the  an- 
swer to  that  prayer. 

It  was  in  that  church  founded  by  Gaylord,  that  such 
men  as  Dr.  Sherrill,  Dr.  Duryea,  Dr.  Warfield,  fulfilled 
their  memorable  ministries,  and  from  it  as  the  mother 
church  have  sprung  more  than  two  hundred  such 
churches  in  all  parts  of  the  State  with  a  total  membership 
of  15,000.  Presbyterians,  with  their  278  churches  and 
15,000  members;  Baptists,  with  300  churches  and  the 
same  number  of  members;  and  Methodists,  with  740 
churches  and  a  membership  of  45,000,  are  all  fruits  of  the 
same  home-missionary  movement  that  began  with  the 
opening  of  Nebraska  as  a  Territory  and  have  followed 
its  development  as  a  State.  The  Christian  proportion 
of  Nebraska's  population  is  for  various  reasons  smaller 
than  some  other  States,  but  it  has  one  jewel  in  its 
crown  to  which  Dr.  Bross  thus  alludes:  "Faith,  hope, 
and  heroic  effort  have  gone  into  the  work  thus  far.  De- 
voted men  and  women  have  prayed  and  wrought  that 
the  State  might  be  Christian.  These  influences  have 
had  to  do  with  making  a  commonwealth,  which  for  years 
has  shown  the  lowest  percentage  of  illiteracy  of  any 
State  in  the  Union."  ^ 

^  Dr.  Geo.  L.  Miller  of  Omaha,  who  witnessed  the  incident,  adds, 
in  a  personal  letter  to  the  author:  "It  was  Reuben  Gaylord,  the 
brave  Christian  soldier  who  brought  Sunday  into  Omaha  and 
the  trans-Missouri  country." 

^  H.  Bross,  Seventy-fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  Congregational 
Home  Missionary  Society,  p.  45. 


IX 

THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE— MINNESOTA 
AND   THE    DAKOTAS 

Minnesota  came  into  its  State  domain  by  a  road 
almost  as  tortuous  as  that  of  Iowa.  Its  northeastern 
third  was  originally  part  of  the  Northwest  Territory  and 
had  the  requirements  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787  been 
strictly  observed,  would  be  included  to-day  in  the  State 
of  Wisconsin.  The  remaining  two  thirds  were  a  part  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase.  At  different  times  it  has  been 
one  with  the  Territory  of  Wisconsin  and  the  Territory  of 
Illinois,  and  at  the  time  of  its  own  organization  as  a  Ter- 
ritory it  included  about  one  half  of  the  Dakotas.  Little 
by  little  it  shrank  on  one  side  and  expanded  on  the 
other,  until  in  1858  it  was  welcomed  into  the  Union 
with  its  present  magnificent  area  of  83,365  square  miles. 

Following  that  event,  settlement,  long  delayed,  leaped 
forward  with  magical  rapidity.  When  made  a  Territory 
in  1849,  it  had  scarcely  6,000  people.  Ten  years  later 
(1860)  it  had  172,000.  The  State  census  of  1865  shows 
250,000  and  the  national  census  of  1870  raises  the  figure 
to  438,000  which  has  since  that  year  mnltiplied  nearly 
four  times.     The  population  in  1900  was  1,751,395. 

Obviously,  Minnesota  must  possess  exceptional  at- 
tractions to  account  for  this  mighty  growth.  A  climate 
dry,  bracing  and  healthful,  a  soil  wonderfully  produc- 
tive, washed  on  the  east  by  Superior  and  penetrated 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  121 

through  nearly  its  entire  length  by  the  Father  of  Waters, 
abundantly  wooded  and  rich  in  mineral  deposits; — with 
these  for  special  features,  Minnesota  lacked  nothing  to 
attract  the  eye  and  inspire  the  hope  of  the  eastern  emi- 
grant. 

Something  of  the  character  of  its  early  American  set- 
tlers may  be  inferred  from  the  make-up  of  the  first  Terri- 
torial legislature.  Four  of  its  members  were  from  Can- 
ada, two  from  Maine,  three  from  Vermont,  one  from 
New  Hampshire,  two  from  Connecticut,  three  from  New 
York,  two  from  Pennsylvania,  two  from  Michigan,  one 
each  from  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Virginia,  Ohio,  and 
Missouri, — twenty-four  in  all  and  two  thirds  of  them 
from  New  England  or  the  Middle  West.  With  no  per- 
sonal knowledge  whatever  of  these  early  legislators,  it 
would  be  safe  to  assume  that  a  body  thus  derived  might 
be  trusted  to  deal  intelligently  with  all  questions  of 
public  interest. 

Furthermore,  the  young  Territory  appears  to  have  been 
equally  fortunate  in  its  first  governor.  The  opening 
note  of  his  inaugural  message  is  an  appeal  for  a  stringent 
temperance  law,  accompanied  with  some  plain  words 
upon  "the  disreputable  and  demoralizing  business  of 
liquor  selHng."  It  was  a  brave  and  timely  note,  and 
without  discounting  in  the  least  the  sincerity  of  Governor 
Ramsey,  we  may  presume  that  his  message  reflected  the 
sentiment  of  the  majority  of  the  people.  The  entire 
document,  closing  with  an  appeal  for  "liberty  and  law, 
rehgion  and  education,"  was  the  prophecy  of  a  Christian 
commonwealth,  a  prophecy  amply  fulfilled,  and  afford- 
ing the  best  evidence  that  the  Puritan  spirit,  in  its  mi- 
gration to  the  Mississippi  and  beyond,  had  lost  none  of 
its  early  virility. 


122  Leavening  the  Nation 

At  this  time,  the  rehgious  needs  of  St.  Paul,  "a  little 
town,"  were  supplied  by  a  Catholic  priest  and  four 
Protestant  missionaries — Episcopal,  Methodist,  Bap- 
tist, and  Presbyterian.  Romanists  were  in  the  majority, 
and  were  even  then  planning  for  a  cathedral.  Contri- 
butions of  money  from  Boston  enabled  the  Presbyterians 
to  erect  a  small  building,  the  only  Protestant  sanctuary, 
at  that  time,  north  of  Dubuque.  St.  Anthony's  Falls, 
now  Minneapolis,  was  an  outstation  for  an  occasional 
service;  where  the  proprietors  allowed  no  one  to  settle 
without  an  iron-clad  promise  to  sell  no  liquor. 

Within  a  few  months  of  Territorial  organization,  we 
find  further  proof  of  the  enlightened  spirit  of  the  govern- 
ment in  their  report  on  education.  "Virtue  and  intelli- 
gence," it  declares,  "are  the  only  pillars  on  which  repub- 
lican governments  can  safely  rest."  "Man  should  be 
educated  for  eternity."  "Morality  and  religion  should 
be  regarded  as  the  most  essential  elements  of  education 
and  should  hold  their  due  prominence  in  every  institu- 
tion of  learning.  The  sublime  truths  and  precepts  of 
Christianity  should  be  impressed,  urged,  and  clearly 
explained,  as  presented  in  the  Bible,  and  as  taught  and 
illustrated  by  its  Divine  Author;  and  bigotry,  fanati- 
cism and  narrow-minded  sectarian  prejudice,  be  forever 
excluded  from  every  temple  of  knowledge,  and  con- 
signed to  that  dark  oblivion  to  which  the  progress  of 
light  and  knowledge  are  hastening  them." 

We  beg  the  reader  to  note,  this  is  not  an  extract  from 
some  preacher's  Sabbath  morning  sermon,  but  is  taken 
from  a  legislative  report  of  Minnesota's  Committee  on 
Education.  Thus  far  we  have  failed  to  discover  any 
other  utterance  of  its  kind  so  complete  and  unequivocal, 
and  so  clearly  demonstrating  that  the  early  spirit  of 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  123 

New  England,  which  it  was  the  effort  of  Home  Missions 
to  plant  in  New  York,  and  the  Northwest  Territory, 
had  taken  root  in  the  pubhc  life  of  the  newer  West,  and 
was  propagating  itself  now  beyond  the  River  and  on- 
ward towards  the  Pacific. 

The  fifth  of  April,  1852,  witnessed  a  temperance  vic- 
tory that  revealed  the  moral  spirit  of  the  Territory;  the 
passage  of  a  law  by  popular  vote  prohibiting  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  of  intoxicating  hquors.  It  was  the 
Maine  law  transplanted.  On  the  Sabbath  previous  to 
the  vote,  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop  and  every  Protes- 
tant missionary  made  their  pulpits  ring  with  temperance 
sermons.  Every  pubhc  officer  and  every  editor  in  St. 
Paul,  except  one,  voted  for  prohibition.  St.  Paul  was 
the  Gibraltar  of  the  opposition,  and  although  whiskey 
was  freely  used  as  a  bait,  yet  in  a  total  vote  of  674,  the 
rum  party  triumphed  by  a  bare  majority  of  twelve;  a 
victory  that  was  robbed  of  all  harm  by  the  overwhelming 
temperance  vote  of  the  county. 

In  all  these  friendly  conditions  of  pubhc  sentiment, 
Home  Missions  fomid  a  pecuhar  support,  such  as  had 
been  enjoyed  in  no  other  field  of  the  West  hitherto 
opened.  Four  Protestant  missionaries  were  rapidly 
laying  fovmdations:  E.  D.  Neill,  at  St.  Paul;  J.  C.  Whit- 
ney, at  Stillwater;  Charles  Seccombe,  at  St.  Anthony; 
and  Richard  Hall,  at  Point  Douglass.  The  combined 
population  at  these  points  did  not  exceed  3,000.  Of 
subsequent  developments.  Dr.  L.  H.  Cobb,  in  his  review 
of  "Forty  years  of  Home  Missions  in  Minnesota,"  re- 
marks : 

"  Men  at  all  accustomed  to  life  in  the  West,  especially 
when  great  movements  of  population  are  going  on,  wiU 
not  need  to  be  told  the  exceeding  difficulty  and  dehcacy 


124  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  the  work  from  this  point  and  even  from  the  very  first. 
Many  of  the  emigrants  brought  the  faith  and  pohty  of 
the  Pilgrims.  Others  brought  the  faith  and  pohty  of  a 
large  number  of  other  denominations.  Some  of  them 
left  their  faith  and  polity,  if  they  had  any,  in  the  places 
from  which  they  came,  certainly  it  did  not  appear  when 
they  reached  the  wilderness  wilds  of  Minnesota."  ^ 

The  multipHcity  of  denominations  represented  in  the 
early  tide  of  immigration,  to  which  Dr.  Cobb  here  al- 
ludes, proved  in  Minnesota,  and  has  proved  in  most 
new  States,  an  embarrassing  home-missionary  problem. 
People  religiously  trained,  naturally  prefer  their  own 
church  to  any  other,  and  in  a  strange,  new  country,  far 
from  home,  this  preference  rises  to  a  longing,  which  they 
are  ready  at  almost  any  sacrifice  to  gratify.  In  a  rapidly 
growing  settlement  this  spirit  of  denominational  enter- 
prise is  often  wise  and  praiseworthy.  Nevertheless 
mistakes  are  inevitable ;  churches  are  sometimes  planted 
that  will  not  be  needed,  and  money  and  men  are  wasted 
that  might,  wdth  clearer  vision  of  the  future,  have  been 
saved.  The  hamlet  does  not  always  expand  to  the  town, 
nor  the  promising  town  to  the  city,  as  was  expected. 
The  railroad  that  was  coming,  does  not  come,  but  passes 
by  on  the  other  side.  A  certain  margin  of  waste  is  thus 
inevitable  in  the  planting  of  churches,  as  in  other  less 
valuable  sowing,  and  the  time  for  wise  weeding  is  sure 
to  come. 

We  do  not  say  that  Minnesota  has  been  a  sinner  or  a 
sufferer  above  all  others  in  this  respect,  but  her  rapid 
growth  and  the  large  element  of  church  people  in  that 
growth  specially  exposed  her,  for  a  time,  to  the  peril  of 

^Church  Building  Quarterly,  vol.  19,  p.  167. 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakota s  125 

too  many  churches, — too  much  leaven  for  the  meal, — in 
a  given  population.  Time  has  settled  most  of  these 
problems  and  has  taught  the  wisdom  of  making  haste 
more  slowly,  for  the  sake  of  greater  permanency. 

It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  home-missionary  de- 
velopment of  Minnesota  began  actively,  at  a  time  when 
the  historic  Plan  of  Union,  between  Congregationalists 
and  Presbyterians,  was  in  its  last  stages.  It  was  for- 
mally abandoned  in  1851,  and  since  that  date  each  of 
these  denominations,  with  mutual  good-will,  has  carried 
on  its  missionary  work  independent  of  the  other.  The 
two  Congregational  pioneers  of  this  period  were  Richard 
Hall  and  Charles  Seccombe.  For  nearly  twenty  years, 
Mr.  Hall  acted  as  Missionary  Superintendent,  and  the 
permanent  fruits  of  his  labors  appeared  in  the  planting 
of  one  hundred  and  six  churches  and  in  the  building  of 
fifty-two  houses  of  worship.  Father  Hall  still  hves,  an 
honored  minister  in  the  State  of  his  adoption,  enjoying 
in  a  serene  old  age,  the  reward  of  his  early  labors.  Few 
missionary  pioneers  have  sown  their  life  and  strength 
more  Uberally,  or  have  lived  to  witness  a  grander  har- 
vest. 

Father  Seccombe  began  work  as  pastor  of  the  First 
Presbyterian  Church  of  St.  Anthony's  Falls,  in  1850, 
under  the  Plan  of  Union.  One  year  later  he  organized 
the  First  Congregational  Church  of  the  same  place  and 
served  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society  from  that 
time,  both  in  Minnesota  and  South  Dakota  for  many 
years.  During  all  these  years  in  both  States  and  in  the 
East,  he  was  highly  honored  as  a  typical  western  worker. 
His  missionary  addresses  were  heard  with  pleasure,  and 
his  intense  earnestness  and  evident  consecration  gave 
bis  words  pecuhar  power. 


126  Leavening  the  Nation 

Minnesota  has  been  fortunate  from  the  first  in  her 
Missionary  leaders.  Father  Hall  left  a  model  of  wise 
administration  which  subsequent  superintendents  have 
been  glad  to  follow.  From  1874  to  1881  the  position 
was  filled  by  Dr.  L.  H.  Cobb,  who  saw  seventy  churches 
planted  under  his  direction ;  by  Rev.  M.  W.  Montgomery 
for  three  years  between  1881  and  1884,  when  thirty  new 
churches  were  added,  several  of  them  in  populous  cen- 
ters; by  Dr.  J.  H.  Morley,  from  1884  to  1899,  a  period 
which  witnessed  the  organization  of  149  churches.  The 
present  Superintendent,  Dr.  George  R.  Merrill,  for  some 
years  a  Minneapolis  pastor,  has  brought  to  the  work, 
besides  personal  qualifications  of  a  high  order,  an  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  the  conditions  of  the  field. 
Few  States  have  enjoyed  the  lead  of  stronger  men,  and 
eminently  worthy  of  a  place  among  them  is  Rev.  George 
A.  Hood,  who  acted  as  Superintendent  during  the  tem- 
porary disabihty  of  Mr.  Montgomery. 

Another  leader  of  eminence  was  Dr.  David  C.  Lyon  of 
the  Presbyterian  Board,  who  has  been  styled  "  The 
Father  of  Presbyterianism  in  the  Northwest."  Between 
1867  and  1885,  with  headquarters  at  St.  Paul,  he  was 
Synodical  Missionary  for  Minnesota  and  Dakota.  "  His 
sagacity  in  locating  churches  was  remarkable.  An  evi- 
dence of  this  is  the  fact  that  only  one  of  the  churches  he 
organized  has  ever  been  disbanded."  ^  His  gift  of  tact 
was  quite  as  remarkable  as  his  sagacity.  On  one  occa- 
sion, in  a  new  and  rough  community,  he  had  posted  a 
notice  on  a  saloon  door  announcing  divine  service  at  half 
past  ten  and  half  past  seven  the  following  Sunday.  Re- 
turning to  the  same  place  later,  he  found  another  notice 

*  "Home  Missionary  Hero  Series,"  Presbyterian  Board,  No.  8. 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  127 

under  his  own,  announcing  a  dog-fight  at  half  past  ten 
and  a  cock-fight  at  half  past  seven.  As  he  paused  to 
read  he  was  surrounded  by  a  rough  and  dangerous  gang 
who  waited  for  what  might  follow.  Having  read  their 
counter  notice  carefully  through,  he  turned  to  them 
good-naturedly  and  remarked,  "Well  gentlemen,  you 
can  have  your  choice,"  a  treatment  so  courteous  and 
unexpected  that  many  of  them  were  won  to  come  to  and 
hear  him  preach. 

Fifty  years  of  home  missions  in  Minnesota — and  what 
are  the  results?  Four  Protestant  Missionary  Boards 
have  invested  more  than  two  million  dollars  in  churches 
and  kindred  agencies.  The  visible  fruits  appear  in  the 
fact,  that  Minnesota  in  the  ratio  of  its  church-going 
population,  ranks  in  the  same  class  with  Massachusetts, 
Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island.  Indeed,  these  four 
States  constitute  a  class  by  themselves  in  having  more 
than  forty-one  per  cent  of  their  population  in  church 
connection.  All  which  this  splendid  ratio  imphes  in  the 
moral,  social,  educational,  and  civic  life  of  a  Western 
State  will  be  inferred  by  every  reflective  mind,  although 
it  may  not  be  tabulated  to  the  eye. 

Minnesota  has  justified  the  proud  motto  of  its  State 
Seal,  "L'Etoile  du  Nord"  (the  Star  of  the  North).  Many 
causes  have  united  to  give  her  this  honorable  promi- 
nence among  American  commonwealths;  but  when  all 
are  summed  up  it  will  be  found  that  not  the  least 
among  the  forces  contributing  to  the  moral  and  pohtical 
strength  of  Minnesota,  are  her  churches  and  kindred 
institutions,  which  were  planted,  and  have  been  nurtured 
and  developed,  almost  without  exception,  by  the  agency 
of  organized  Home  Missions. 

West  of  Minnesota  lie  two  immense  squares  which 


128  Leavening  the  Nation 

were  formerly  one  and  known  as  Dakota.  The  name  is 
obviously  of  Indian  origin  and  means  "The  Confederated 
Tribes."  Previous  to  its  organization  as  a  Territory  in 
1861,  it  was  included  with  Wj'^oming,  Montana,  and 
Nebraska,  in  the  Territory  of  Nebraska.  Eight  years 
later  Wyoming  and  Montana  were  set  off  by  themselves 
and  Nebraska  had  come  to  Statehood,  but  up  to  the  time 
of  the  separation  the  whole  area,  excluding  Nebraska,  of 
390,000  square  miles,  held  a  white  population  of  less  than 
3,000.  Two  years  later,  1870,  Dakota  reported  15,000 
and  Wyoming  9,000.  This  sudden  expansion  was 
nothing  new  in  the  development  of  the  West,  and  is  sur- 
prising only  in  the  fact  that  no  event  in  particular  had 
occurred  to  account  for  it. 

The  fear  of  Indian  raids  had  somewhat  abated,  and 
the  prospect  of  railroad  development  was  reasonably 
assured;  but  the  immediate  cause  of  Dakota's  sudden 
advance  in  population  was  not  as  apparent  as  in  some 
other  States.  Yet  it  was  well  founded.  The  early 
settlers  soon  discovered  that  Dakota,  however  limited  in 
its  forests  and  mineral  treasures,  possessed  an  untold 
wealth  in  the  capabihties  of  its  soil,  and  for  that  class  of 
immigrants,  either  native  or  foreign,  who  knew  the  art 
of  farming,  it  was  a  mine  of  productive  power.  Its 
soil,  almost  uniformly  rich,  and  often  from  fifteen  to 
twenty  feet  in  depth,  needed  only  "to  be  tickled  with  a 
hoe  to  laugh  with  a  harvest."  The  "Bad  Lands,"  so 
called,  are  but  75,000  acres  in  a  total  area  of  97,000,000 
acres.  After  nearly  thirty  years  of  Territorial  govern- 
ment, Dakota  became  two  States,  which  were  admitted 
to  the  Union  in  1889.  Meanwhile  the  population  had 
risen  from  15,000  to  more  than  half  a  million. 

The  home-missionary  problem  in   the  Dakotas  was 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  129 

complicated  from  the  start  by  the  scattered  condition 
of  its  settlements.  Cities  were  few;  large  towns  did  not 
gather  rapidly;  and  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
were  distributed  across  the  prairies  on  farms  and  ranches 
which  singly  were  often  as  large  as  an  eastern  township. 
This  made  the  planting  of  churches  slow  and  difficult, 
and  operated  against  their  speedy  development.  In- 
deed, not  a  few  friends  of  Western  Home  Missions  at  the 
East,  feared  a  failure  of  the  effort,  or  looked  for  success 
only  after  years  of  costly  investment. 

Joseph  Ward  was  not  among  the  timid  and  unbeliev- 
ing. Born  in  Perry  Center,  New  York,  in  1838,  which 
was  itself  a  colony  from  the  Berkshire  Hills  of  Western 
Massachusetts,  he  inherited  New  England  blood,  and  the 
ideals  that  go  with  it.  His  parents  had  emigrated  from 
Massachusetts  to  the  far  west  of  Central  New  York,  at  an 
early  date;  and  when  the  son  came  to  the  choice  of  a 
field  for  his  own  hfework,  it  was  a  natural  sequence  that 
turned  his  steps  towards  the  newer  West. 

"On  graduating  from  Andover  in  1868,  calls  from 
several  inviting  churches  were  proffered  him,  but  the 
positions  seemed  too  easy  to  suit  his  zeal  for  hard  work. 
The  little  hamlet  of  Yankton  with  its  nucleus  of  em- 
bryo church  fife  was  set  before  him,  and  the  '  elect  lady ' 
who  was  to  be  the  closest  helper  in  all  his  toil,  and  to 
make  their  home  the  warm  shelter  it  has  been  for  so 
many  of  God's  servants.  After  never-to-be-forgotten 
confidential  interviews  on  Andover  Hill  and  in  the  Bible 
House,  Yankton  was  chosen  as  the  opening,  calling  for 
the  hardest  work."  ^ 

The  personaHty  of  the  man  was  a  large  element  of  his 

'  A.  H.  Clapp,  Home  Missionary,  vol.  62,  p.  460. 


130  Leavening  the  Nation 

power.  He  had  the  physical  presence  of  a  leader;  man- 
liness clothed  him  as  with  a  garment,  and  breathed  in 
every  utterance  of  his  lips.  Confidence  is  said  to  be  a 
plant  of  slow  growth,  but  the  power  of  inspiring  confi- 
dence was  given  to  Joseph  Ward  almost  instinctively; 
and  to  the  end,  the  faith  of  the  people  in  him  never 
wavered.  During  an  early  visit  of  Dr.  A.  H.  Clapp  to 
Dakota,  he  found  himself  one  day  in  the  same  car  with 
the  then  governor  of  the  Territory  and  their  conversa- 
tion fell  upon  the  Yankton  pastor.  The  Governor  (an 
Episcopalian)  said  with  much  earnestness:  "Ward  has 
more  influence  than  any  other  man  in  this  Territory. 
He  can  do  just  what  he  pleases  with  its  people.  They 
call  me  '  Governor,'  but  I  have  not  a  tithe  of  his  power 
here." 

It  would  have  been  easy  for  Joseph  Ward  to  content 
himself  with  the  care  of  his  own  church  or  at  most  with 
the  development  of  his  own  order;  and  to  many  men  it 
would  have  been  enough,  but  not  for  him.  His  mind 
was  of  that  larger  mold,  in  which  commonwealths  are 
forecast  and  fashioned.  He  was  by  choice  a  missionary 
and  pastor,  but  he  was  also  a  citizen,  with  New  England 
ideals  and  with  the  power  and  will  to  make  his  dreams 
come  true,  even  in  the  virgin  soil  of  an  embryo  State. 
In  his  gifted  nature,  he  was  something  of  the  statesman 
and  much  of  the  seer,  but  nothing  of  the  politician. 
Office,  he  never  sought,  though  it  often  sought  him ;  and 
had  he  chosen  he  might  have  won  distinction  in  the 
councils  of  the  nation.  He  preferred  to  lay  the  hidden 
foundations  of  future  States  which  would  be  standing 
firm  when  political  honors  should  have  vanished,  for- 
gotten. 

For  seven  years,  between  1882  and  1889,  the  problem 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  131 

of  Statehood  was  a  burning  question.  The  affairs  of  the 
Territory  had  fallen  into  the  political  keeping  of  corrupt 
men.  The  people  were  waiting  to  be  aroused,  inspired, 
combined,  and  marshalled  into  a  fighting  majority  for 
honest  government  and  civic  righteousness.  Leaders  of 
tact,  sincerity,  and  incorruptible  integrity  were  the  need 
of  the  hour.  The  future  of  two  States  hung  on  the  issue, 
and  one  convention  followed  another,  ending  in  repeated 
defeats.  Through  all  that  seven  years'  war  Joseph 
Ward  was  a  trusted  and  indispensable  leader.  By  com- 
mon consent  it  is  agreed  that  more  than  any  other  one 
man,  he  influenced  the  people  to  right  final  action.  As 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  education,  he  shaped  the 
new  constitution  in  this  important  matter.  He  pro- 
posed and  advocated  the  prohibition  clause  which  event- 
ually prevailed,  and  made  a  strong  fight  against  special 
legislation,  bribery,  corruption,  and  unequal  taxation. 

It  was  an  inspiring  sight  in  those  days  to  watch  the 
conflict  between  this  knightly  champion  of  high  ideals 
and  the  small  politicians  of  the  hour.  The  people  were 
ready  to  be  won  by  the  best  leadership.  They  had  faith 
in  the  honesty  and  the  wisdom  of  Joseph  Ward,  and 
around  him,  the  humble  missionary,  rather  than  any 
other  man,  the  best  public  sentiment  ralhed,  and  won  a 
moral  and  political  victory  which  abides  to  this  hour. 
This  is  no  partial  verdict  of  his  denominational  friends 
and  brethren.  Judge  Hugh  J.  Campbell,  an  active  par- 
ticipant in  the  excitement  of  those  days,  has  given  this 
testimony : 

"When  at  times  the  scale  seemed  to  waver  and  public 
sentiment  to  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  legality  and  propriety 
of  the  movements  which  were  proposed,  it  was  more 
than  anything  else  the  colossal  weight  of  his  great  per- 


132  Leavening  the  Nation 

sonal  character  and  influence  that  ralUed  to  its  flag  the 
popular  sentiment  of  the  State.  That  South  Dakota  is 
to-day  a  State  and  has  a  star  upon  the  flag  of  this  mighty 
Union  of  States,  is  due  to  the  influence  and  character  of 
Joseph  Ward.  If  South  Dakota  ever  rears  in  her  temple 
of  Statehood  any  statues  in  memory  of  her  sons  who 
have  done  the  State  signal  service  in  critical  times  of  dan- 
ger, and  have  helped  most  to  shape  her  destinies  for  good, 
foremost  and  highest  among  them  all  will  stand  the 
noble,  genial,  powerful,  form  of  Joseph  Ward." 

It  might  seem  that  such  a  record  were  crown  enough 
for  any  man.  But  the  redeemed  and  purified  State  of 
South  Dakota  is  not  his  only  nor  his  chief  monument. 
The  last  eight  years  of  his  life  were  devoted  to  that  most 
arduous,  disheartening,  and  potential  of  all  labors,  the 
planting  and  upbuilding  of  a  Christian  college.  His 
calling  to  this  task  was  manifestly  a  divine  summons. 
Yankton  College  had  become  a  necessity,  and  Joseph 
Ward  was  the  Lord's  anointed  to  be  its  founder  and 
champion. 

With  all  his  natural  zeal  and  optimism  he  threw  him- 
self, body  and  soul,  into  this  new  endeavor.  A  double 
constituency  was  to  be  created:  a  constituency  of  stu- 
dents within  the  natural  feeding-ground  of  such  an  in- 
stitution, and  a  supporting  constituency  in  the  far  East. 
Probably  no  man  in  his  position  was  ever  more  successful 
in  both  directions.  His  unusual  gift  of  inspiring  confi- 
dence served  him  well.  But  the  field  he  had  entered 
was  crowded  with  competitors,  all  needy  and  all  worthy 
of  relief.  The  day  of  princely  gifts  to  colleges  had  not 
dawned.  He  was  one  among  many  gleaners,  and  the 
leavings  were  small.  His  visits  to  the  East  and  his  ardent 
appeals  for  help  won  many  friends  for  the  college,    Hi^ 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  133 

journeys  among  the  churches  of  his  own  State  inspired 
many  youth  of  both  sexes  to  covet  a  hberal  education. 
Between  the  two,  the  perplexities  of  administration  en- 
grossed all  his  remaining  strength,  even  to  the  breaking- 
point.  Teachers  must  be  found  in  full  sympathy  with  his 
high  ideals,  and  provision  for  their  payment  must  be 
devised.  Buildings  must  be  put  up,  and  money  must  be 
forthcoming  for  their  erection. 

Dr.  D.  F.  Bradley,  who  was  Dr.  Ward's  successor  in 
the  Yankton  church  and  an  ardent  friend  of  the  college, 
has  well  said:  "It  is  no  pastime  to  build  a  college,  and 
especially  to  build  without  material.  Yankton  College 
was  built  by  Dr.  Ward,  as  if  he  himself  quarried  the 
stone,  hewed  it  into  shape,  carried  it  to  its  place,  mixed 
its  mortar  with  his  blood  and  sweat,  fashioned  its  fair 
proportions,  covered  it  with  its  roof,  warmed  it  with  his 
own  zeal." 

Says  another:*  "The  material  results  of  eight  years' 
labor  of  Dr.  Ward  as  President  of  Yankton  College, 
aggregate  in  land,  buildings,  library,  apparatus,  endow- 
ment, and  scholarship  funds,  more  than  $100,000.  But 
that  is,  and  ever  will  be,  the  smallest  results  of  his 
labors."  His  noble  wife  who  shared  the  burden,  and 
knew  its  crushing  weight,  as  no  other  could,  has  added: 
"I  think  it  was  a  loving  Providence  that  honored  us  with 
the  privilege  of  standing  in  the  front.  I  do  not  think 
we  were  presumptuous  in  taking  the  position  we  did, 
namely:  we  will  put  in  ourselves  and  all  we  have  until, 
in  other  ways,  God  carries  on  the  work.  I  think  so  much 
was  needed  from  some  one;  for  an  institution  that  is  to 
live  must  have  life  literally  put  into  it."     Yankton  Col- 

*  Prof.  John  T.  Shaw. 


134  Leavening  the  Nation 

lege  is  in  a  sacred  sense  the  Hving  monument  of  its  first 
president,  who  died  to  give  it  hfe.  If  his  remains  were 
buried  beneath  its  walls,  no  inscription  would  be  so  be- 
fitting as  that  which  marks  the  tomb  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren  in  the  crypt  of  St.  Paul:  "Si  monumentum  re- 
quiris  circimispice,"  "If  you  seek  his  monument  look 
around  you." 

The  Dakotas  for  nearly  ten  years  were  fortunate  in  the 
services  of  Stewart  Sheldon  as  general  missionary  and 
superintendent.  Mrs.  Sheldon  was  the  sister  of  Joseph 
Ward  and  mother  of  Rev.  C.  M.  Sheldon  of  Topeka, 
whose  writings  have  compassed  the  world.  The  close 
family  tie  between  Sheldon  the  superintendent  and 
Ward  the  pioneer  gave  peculiar  strength  and  unity  to 
the  home-missionary  administration.  In  Dr.  Ward,  the 
superintendent  found  a  wise,  farsighted  counselor,  and 
in  Mr.  Sheldon  the  fervent  spirit  of  Ward  found  a  con- 
servative, judicious  ally  and  agent.  It  is  Uttle  wonder 
under  a  partnership  so  exceptionally  fehcitous  that 
churches  multiplied  rapidly,  passing  the  two-hundred 
mark  in  less  than  fifteen  years. 

Little  wonder  also  that  this  splendid  leadership  in 
Dakota  should  have  inspired  some  of  the  brightest  young 
men  of  the  seminaries  to  cast  their  lot  into  this  promis- 
ing field.  The  most  significant  movement  of  this  kind 
was  the  gathering  of  the  Yale  Dakota  Band,  in  1880. 
In  this  as  in  almost  every  other  band  movement,  the 
final  decision  was  effected  by  the  report  of  one  student 
who  had  spent  a  vacation  month  upon  the  field.  Aden 
B.  Case  was  the  avant  coureur  of  the  Dakota  Band.  He 
came  back  inspired,  and  had  the  rare  power  of  inspiring 
others  with  his  own  ardent  faith.  The  Band  as  finally 
organized  was  made  up  as  follows; 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  135 

Aden  B.  Case,  111.;  Pliny  B.  Fisk,  Vt.;  Philip  E.  Holp, 
Ohio;  William  B.  Hubbard,  111.;  George  Lindsey,  Scot- 
land; John  R.  Reitzel,  Pa.;  Charles  W.  Shelton,  Conn.; 
William  H.  Thrall,  111.;  George  W.  Trimble,  Ohio. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  only  two  of  these  men  hailed 
from  New  England.  The  larger  part  came  from  points 
within  the  early  home-missionary  belt,  settled,  developed, 
and  to  a  large  degree  evangelized  by  New  England  in- 
fluences. The  Dakota  Band  may  be  regarded  as  repre- 
senting the  second  generation  of  Home  Missions,  catch- 
ing up  the  torch  committed  to  their  fathers  by  Con- 
necticut and  Massachusetts,  bearing  it  on  to  the  Dakotas, 
whose  enlightened  children  in  turn  shall  pass  it  on  to 
the  newer  West. 

The  farewell  meeting  of  the  Band  was  held  in  Boston 
at  Park  Street  Church  where  parting  words  were  spoken 
by  Drs.  Withrow,  Duryea,  and  H.  M.  Storrs.  A  visit  was 
made  to  Plymouth  Rock,  and  from  the  graves  of  the  first 
organized  band  of  American  home  missionaries,  these 
youthful  pilgrims  went  forth  in  the  spirit  of  the  Fathers, 
and  with  their  great  "hope  and  inward  zeal  of  laying 
some  good  foundation." 

Their  coming  was  at  a  time  of  pecuhar  need  and  prom- 
ise. "The  long  trains  of  immigrants  sweeping  into  the 
Territory  every  day ;  the  thousand  homesteads  a  day  that 
were  taken  up  for  consecutive  weeks  by  these  people ;  the 
new  towns  springing  up  as  if  by  magic,  on  every  hand; 
the  notice  from  the  trunk-hne  railroads  that  no  freight 
could  be  received  for  shipment  into  the  Territory,  as 
thousands  of  loaded  cars  were  then  sidetracked  along  the 
line  waiting  for  transportation;  the  rush  and  the  whirl 
of  that  new  life  where  everything  was  new,  everything 
formative,  and  everything  being  formed — only  those 


136  Leavening  the  Nation 

who  have  hved  it  can  undertand,  and  no  word-painting 
can  give  even  a  faint  representation  of  what  it  meant."  * 

The  new  force  was  soon  distributed  under  the  skilled 
direction  of  Mr.  Sheldon  and  Dr.  Ward,  and  when  at 
work  they  stretched  in  a  line  from  the  banks  of  the  Big 
Sioux  on  the  east  to  the  Missouri  on  the  west,  a  distance 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  Twenty  years  have  passed. 
Eight  of  the  Band  are  living,  six  of  them  engaged  in 
home-missionary  work,  and  five  under  commission  of 
the  Home  Missionary  Society.  Supt.  Sheldon  was  suc- 
ceeded by  Rev,  H.  D.  Wiard,  and  he  in  turn  by  Rev.  W. 
H.  Thrall  of  the  Band.  Rev.  C.  W.  Shelton  after  fruitful 
service  in  Dakota  was  needed  for  the  Society's  special 
work  at  the  East,  and  for  several  years  has  been  its  well 
beloved  and  efficient  eastern  field  secretary. 

Most  that  has  been  narrated  of  missionary  work  in 
Dakota  applies  to  the  Territory  before  division  and  State- 
hood. North  Dakota  is  now  a  separate  State,  under 
separate  missionary  direction.  For  fifteen  years  Rev. 
Henry  Clay  Simmons  was  its  untiring  superintendent — 
a  man  of  large  pattern  in  body,  mind,  and  spirit — tempted 
by  his  zeal  and  physical  strength  to  bear  burdens  which 
probably  shortened  his  life ;  a  man  who  spared  not  him- 
self in  the  cause  he  loved,  but  was  instant  in  season  and 
out  of  season;  who  won  the  warmest  friends  by  the 
power  of  a  genuine  sympathy,  and  was  beloved  as  few 
in  his  position  are,  for  many  noble  and  manly  qualities 
of  character.  The  closing  years  of  his  life  were  given  to 
Fargo  College,  and  in  its  service  as  president,  he  fell,  like 
a  faithful  soldier  in  the  front  line  of  battle. 

Rev.  G.  J.  Powell,  who  succeeds  Dr.  Simmons  as 

*  C.  W.  Shelton,  Home  Missionary,  Jan.,  1901,  p.  192, 


Minnesota  and  the  Dakotas  137 

Superintendent,  remarks  that  "North  Dakota  has  a 
population  that  takes  to  rehgion,"  This  verdict  finds 
confirmation  in  the  tables  of  Dr.  Carroll,  often  quoted 
in  these  pages;  while  the  religious  forces  of  South  Da- 
kota show  a  ratio  of  26  per  cent,  to  its  population,  that  of 
North  Dakota  rises  to  33  per  cent.,  identical  with  that 
of  Ohio,  in  advance  of  Illinois  and  Iowa  and  quite  be- 
yond that  of  Michigan.  For  this  cheering  result  the 
State  is  indebted  in  no  small  degree  to  the  excellence  of 
the  original  stock.  "Scandinavians,  Americans,  Cana- 
dians, Germans,  in  the  order  named  make  up  the  popu- 
lation. The  Scandinavians,  healthy  in  body,  strong  and 
sound  of  mind,  Protestants  in  religion  and  readily  Amer- 
icanized, are  a  substantial  people.  The  Americans  are 
from  New  England,  and  States  one  remove  from  Yankee- 
land,  New  York,  Ohio,  and  from  regions  between.  The 
Canadians  are  from  the  Protestant  province  of  Ontario. 
Fully  half  the  Germans  are  from  Russia,  and  more 
readily  than  any  other  foreigners  they  can  be  gathered 
into  churches."  *  In  spite  of  the  early  unfavorable  con- 
ditions growing  out  of  a  mixed  and  scattered  popula- 
tion, few  home-missionary  investments  have  paid  a 
larger  dividend  than  that  of  the  Dakotas. 

*  Diamond  Jubilee  Report,  p.  50. 


X 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE— WYOMING, 
MONTANA,  IDAHO 

Wyoming  may  justly  divide  with  its  neighbors  on  the 
north,  south,  and  west  whatever  distinction  may  belong 
to  a  "Mountain  State."  A  glance  at  the  map  will  justify 
such  a  claim.  Along  its  boundaries  it  is  guarded  by 
mountainous  ranges,  which  shoot  their  long  spurs  down 
into  its  center.  The  State  has  an  altitude  ranging  from 
3,500  feet,  the  lowest,  to  nearly  14,000  feet,  the  highest, 
with  a  mean  elevation  of  6,400  feet.  The  Continental 
Divide  runs  through  its  western  portion,  and  in  the 
extreme  northwest,  the  marvelous  geysers,  cataracts, 
and  canyons  of  Yellowstone  Park,  have  won  for  Wyo- 
ming the  name  of  "The  Wonderland  of  America."  The 
buried  treasures  of  its  hills,  so  tardily  discovered,  are 
fabulous  in  extent  and  value;  while  the  sheltered  and 
fertile  valleys  that  divide  them  afford  grazing  the  year 
round  to  cattle  and  sheep,  whose  assessed  value  is 
$13,000,000,  and  the  annual  wool  cHp  of  27,500,000 
pounds  is  valued  at  $3,500,000.  Such  wealth  of  nature 
and  such  commercial  values  seem  to  assure  the  per- 
manent growth  and  prosperity  of  the  State. 

Wyoming  was  made  a  territory  in  1868,  from  portions 
of  Dakota,  Idaho,  and  Utah,  and  forms  an  almost  per- 
fect square  of  98,000  square  miles.  Twenty-two  years 
later  (1890)  it  was  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a  State. 

13S 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  139 

For  obvious  geographical  reasons,  its  growth  in  popu- 
lation has  not  been  rapid.  The  agricultural  area,  though 
fertile,  is  small  compared  with  other  States,  and  the 
facilities  of  travel  and  transportation  are  necessarily 
limited.  With  the  exception  of  Nevada,  it  contains  the 
smallest  population  of  any  State  in  the  Union,  about 
93,000. 

The  settlement  of  this  unique  region  was  long  delayed. 
For  nearly  half  a  century  Wyoming  was  nothing  but  a 
highway  of  travel  between  the  great  plains  and  the 
Pacific,  the  only  white  residents  being  fur  traders  and 
mihtary  men.  Montana,  Idaho,  Utah,  and  even  Ne- 
vada, were  being  prospected  and  peopled  while  Wyoming, 
with  equal  attractions,  was  httle  better  than  a  trail  over 
which  caravans  made  their  way  to  more  fortunate  re- 
gions. A  sufficient  explanation  may  have  been  the  im- 
placable hostility  of  wandering  Indian  tribes,  who  felt 
themselves  called  to  be  the  special  guardians  of  its  under- 
ground treasures,  against  the  invasion  of  whites.  From 
1844  to  1868,  the  Territory  was  the  continuous  scene 
of  Indian  warfare,  which  treaties  were  powerless  to 
suppress.  White  settlements  were  impossible,  except 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  some  mifitary  fort. 

Brigham  Young  and  Heber  C.  Kimball,  with  a  com- 
pany of  143  Mormons,  were  the  first  white  settlers  at  Fort 
Laramie  in  1847.  They  did  not  tarry  long,  but  passed 
through  to  Salt  Lake.  Later  a  small  company  of  Mor- 
mons, fifty-five  in  number,  made  a  more  permanent 
residence  at  Green  River,  within  the  present  boundaries 
of  Wyoming,  but  considered  at  the  time  as  a  part  of 
Utah.  Eventually  they  retired  also  before  the  advent  of 
United  States  soldiers. 

It  was  not  until  1867  that  the  real  settlement  began, 


140  Leavening  the  Nation 

when  a  company  of  700  persons  camped  on  Willow 
Creek  and  laid  out  South  Pass  City.  Gold  was  the  at- 
traction, and  several  mining  districts  in  the  vicinity  gave 
commercial  importance  to  the  settlement.  But  a  new 
factor  now  appeared  which  was  to  do  more  for  Wyoming 
than  its  buried  gold  and  silver,  or  its  coal  and  iron,  had 
thus  far  effected:  America's  most  potent  pioneer,  the 
railroad,  was  headed  for  Wyoming.  Construction  gangs 
of  the  Union  Pacific  appeared  in  1868,  and  Cheyenne 
entered  on  its  variegated  career  as  a  railroad  town. 

Wyoming  home  missions  began  with  Cheyenne  when 
the  town  was  described  as  "a  permanent  camp  in  the 
desert  with  no  garden,  no  trees,  no  weeds."  At  the  re- 
quest of  Dr.  J.  E,  Roy,  at  that  time  field  secretary  of  the 
American  Home  Missionary  Society,  Rev.  E.  W.  Cook 
explored  this  camp  in  the  desert,  and  foimd  a  band  of 
nineteen  ready  to  be  gathered  into  a  church.  "The  new 
organization  was  400  miles  from  the  nearest  Congrega- 
tional church  on  the  east,  1,200  miles  on  the  west;  while 
if  one  started  by  the  northern  route,  he  would  be  obliged 
to  travel  2,300  miles  to  reach  one."  ^  Social  and  moral 
conditions  were  such  as  might  be  expected  from  the 
mixed  elements  of  the  settlement.  At  the  end  of  one 
year,  with  a  population  of  5,000,  seventy  of  the  first 
eighty  burials  in  the  cemetery  had  been  from  violent 
deaths,  "shot,  stabbed,  poisoned,  or  hung."  Robberies 
and  assaults  were  of  daily  and  nightly  occurrence. 
Constituted  authority  was  powerless,  and  the  Vigilance 
Committee  ruled  the  town  and  dispensed  summary  judg- 
ment. 

Here  was  good  soil  for  missionary  effort,  and  in  the 
Rev.  and  Col.  J.  D.  Davis  was  found  a  missionary  well 
*  W.  B.  D.  Gray,  Home  Missionary,  May,  1902,  p.  19. 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  141 

equipped  for  such  a  field.  As  a  private  soldier  in  the 
Civil  War,  he  had  borne  the  colors  of  his  regiment  on  the 
battle-field  of  Shiloh,  where  he  was  left  for  dead.  For 
the  last  thirty  years  he  has  served  the  American  Board 
as  a  foreign  missionary  in  Japan.  Under  the  brief  min- 
istry of  Mr.  Davis,  solid  foundations  were  laid  when 
Josiah  Strong  succeeded  him  in  1871.  His  pastorate  of 
two  years  was  a  period  of  cheering  growth  and  of  rising 
moral  tone  in  the  community.  Cheyenne  ceased  to  be 
known  by  the  sulphurous  sobriquet  it  had  previously, 
and,  in  public  opinion,  justly  borne.  A  much  longer 
pastorate  than  that  of  either  Dr.  Davis  or  Dr.  Strong, 
was  that  of  Clarendon  M.  Sanders,  a  man  of  marked  tact 
and  adaptability,  who  brought  the  church  to  self-support, 
saw  its  present  fine  edifice  erected,  and  left  it  only  to  fill 
out  the  balance  of  his  wonderfully  active  life  as  home- 
missionary  superintendent  of  Colorado. 

From  the  mother  church  at  Cheyenne,  which  for  a  long 
time  was  the  only  Congregational  church,  have  sprung 
a  dozen  churches  of  the  same  order,  at  Sheridan,  Rock 
Springs,  Buffalo,  Lusk,  Big  Horn,  and  other  points. 
Population  tended  to  gather  at  spots,  far  apart,  along 
the  southern  borders,  and  in  the  northern  sections  of  the 
State.  Thus  missionary  work  and  need  divide  quite 
sharply  into  three  kinds,  requiring  picked  men  for  each — 
mining  camps,  railroad  towns,  and  ranches.  Distances 
between  stations  are  long  and  difficult  to  overcome,  and 
especially  unfavorable  to  that  ecclesiastical  fellowship 
so  essential  to  the  best  development  of  church  fife. 

Yet  in  the  face  of  all  these  hard  conditions  the  message 
of  the  home  missionary  has  won  its  way,  and  more  than 
holds  its  own.  One  hundred  and  forty-one  religious 
organizations  have  been  established  by  the  various  home 


142  Leavening  the  Nation 

boards  of  missions,  Baptist,  Congregational,  Episcopal, 
Methodist,  and  Presbyterian,  and  one-fifth  part  of  the 
population  is  in  church  connection, — a  result  which  in 
spite  of  early  history  and  natural  obstacles  is  better  than 
that  found  in  Washington,  and  not  far  behind  that  of 
Oregon,  South  Dakota,  and  Colorado. 

While  Idaho,  as  at  present  constituted,  was  never  a 
part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  it  is  convenient  and 
almost  necessary  to  treat  of  its  missionary  conditions 
in  connection  with  those  of  Wyoming  and  Montana.  It 
was  created  a  Territory  in  1863,  from  portions  of  Dakota, 
Nebraska,  and  Washington.  As  such,  it  embraced  the 
present  area  of  Montana,  and  nearly  all  of  Wyoming,  an 
immense  tract  of  326,373  square  miles.  Statehood,  and 
its  present  area  of  84,000  square  miles,  came  in  1890. 

We  may  here  note  in  passing  one  of  those  errors  which 
explain  why  history  must  be  so  often  rewritten.  Pre- 
vious to  1898,  the  official  map  of  the  United  States,  and 
many  school  maps,  without  reason  or  authority,  repre- 
sented the  Louisiana  Purchase  as  including  the  State  of 
Idaho.  It  was  in  July  of  that  year  that  Mr.  Hermann, 
Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office,  called  the 
attention  of  Hon.  Cornelius  N.  Bliss,  then  Secretary  of 
the  Interior,  to  the  error,  and  by  an  able  historical  re- 
view proved  beyond  all  question,  that  Idaho,  together 
with  Oregon,  Washington,  and  portions  of  Montana  and 
Wyoming,  were  never  acquired  by  the  United  States 
through  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  Mr.  Hermann  re- 
quested the  correction  of  the  official  map,  in  accordance 
with  the  facts  as  presented,  and  the  request  was  promptly 
complied  with  by  Mr.  Bliss.  Present  Idaho,  not  the 
Territory  originally  constituted,  belongs  unquestionably 
to  that  vast  northwestern  corner  of  the  national  do- 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  i43 

main,  acquired  by  discovery  on  the  part  of  Capt.  Robert 
Gray  of  Boston  in  1792;  by  explorations  of  Lewis  and 
Clark  in  1805;  by  the  Astoria  settlement  of  1811;  and 
finally  confirmed  by  the  concessions  of  the  Florida 
Treaty  of  1819.     It  was  never  a  part  of  Louisiana. 

If  any  questions  were  possible  as  to  the  attractions  of 
Idaho  or  the  causes  that  led  to  its  settlement,  they 
would  be  dispelled  by  a  brief  study  of  any  good  early 
map.  Such  names  as  "Silver  City,"  "Ruby  City," 
"Placer,"  "Quartz/'  "  Oro  Fino,"  and  not  least  signifi- 
cant among  them  "Poorman's,"  clearly  indicate  a 
"treasure  State,"  and  prepare  us  to  meet  once  more  the 
familiar  conditions  which  marked  the  beginnings  of 
Cahfornia,  Colorado,  Nevada,  and  Wyoming.  Indeed, 
Idaho  had  more  than  its  share  of  the  plagues  of  a  treas- 
ure State. 

"Society  was  chaotic  and  had  in  it  a  liberal  mixture 
of  the  infernal.  Gamblers  abounded,  prostitutes  threw 
other  women  into  the  shade."  ^  The  number  of  murders 
in  Boise  County  alone,  in  1864,  was  more  than  twenty, 
with  assaults  and  robberies  a  long  list.  It  is  estimated 
that  m  Idaho,  then  including  Montana,  no  less  than  200 
outlaws  were  executed  by  vigilant  committees  between 
1861  and  1866.  Idaho  City  was  burned  and  sacked  by 
the  mob  in  1865,  and  murders  and  massacres  of  the  most 
shocking  character  were  common.  In  addition  to  these 
familiar  features  of  a  new  mining  State,  a  large  migra- 
tion from  the  South,  then  in  rebellion,  brought  another 
class  of  troubles.  Pohtical  control  of  the  Territory 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  disloyal  element.  The  "left 
wing  of  Price's  army"  became  dominant  in  society  and 

» H.  H.  Bancroft,  vol.  31,  p.  421. 


144  Leavening  the  Nation 

at  the  polls.  Political  corruption  and  official  dishon- 
esty followed,  and  few  of  those  who  had  the  handling  of 
pubhc  funds,  came  out  of  office  with  clean  hands. 

And  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  Idaho's  afflictions,  one 
fourth  of  the  population  before  1880  were  Mormons. 
They  not  only  practised  and  defended  bigamy  and  polyg- 
amy, but  their  preachers  taught  that  all  laws  for  the 
suppression  of  these  evils  were  unconstitutional,  be- 
cause an  interference  with  religious  liberty.  To  break 
their  power,  the  legislature  of  1884  made  a  law  embody- 
ing a  rigid  test  oath  for  every  voter,  which  required  him 
to  swear  or  affirm  that  he  was  not  a  bigamist  or  polyga- 
mist,  and  that  he  had  no  connection  with  any  organiza- 
tion promulgating  these  tenets.  This  act  nearly  dis- 
franchised the  Mormons,  only  a  few  hundred  of  them 
coming  forward  to  take  the  oath. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  Idaho  had  a  manifold  battle 
to  fight  before  winning  a  peaceful  and  orderly  Statehood. 
The  better  elements  were  there,  though  overborne  and 
obscured  for  the  time.  It  is  said  of  the  character  of 
her  permanent  residents,  that  they  have  been  from  the 
first  a  reading  community,  and  that  more  books  of  the 
better  class  may  be  found  in  the  homes  and  camps  of 
Idaho  than  in  many  towns  of  a  hke  population  in  the 
older  States.  Twenty  newspapers  were  published  in 
1884,  and  their  number  has  greatly  increased  since  that 
time. 

CathoUc  Indian  missions  in  the  present  bounds  of 
Idaho  began  long  before  it  had  a  Territorial  existence. 
A  Protestant  mission  was  estabhshed  by  the  American 
Board  in  1836,  on  the  Clearwater.  The  first  church 
erected  in  the  Territory  was  by  Gathohcs  at  Idaho  City 
in  1863,  and  the  first  Protestant  church,  Methodist,  one 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  145 

year  later.  The  Catholics  were  first  also  at  Boise. 
Their  influence  was  strong,  and  this  with  the  growing 
power  of  the  Mormons,  discouraged  Protestant  enter- 
prise. Prior  to  1871,  only  three  Protestant  churches  and 
four  Sunday-schools  had  been  established,  and  in  three 
years  these  had  increased  to  fifteen.  In  October,  1872, 
the  first  Congregational  missionary  appeared  in  Boise 
after  three  other  denominations  had  tried  and  failed, 
and  organized  a  church  in  1873.  After  a  brief  existence 
it  followed  its  predecessors  to  an  early  grave.  Later,  in 
1891,  a  second  and  more  successful  attempt  was  made, 
resulting  in  one  of  the  strongest  churches  of  the  State. 
Along  the  course  of  the  Oregon  Short  Line,  promising 
churches  have  been  established  by  the  various  boards, 
while  in  the  North,  the  needs  of  the  mining  population, 
especially  in  the  Coeur  d'Alene  region,  have  attracted 
and  are  rewarding  missionary  activity. 

Rev.  J.  D.  Kingsbury,  D.D.,  by  the  request  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  Home  Missionary  Society, 
has  recently  made  an  extended  tour  of  this  section.  His 
discoveries  and  conclusions  throw  valuable  light  upon  the 
needs  and  the  promise  of  missionary  work  in  Northern 
Idaho. 

"The  Cceur  d'Alene  country,"  says  Dr.  Kingsbury, 
"has  a  population  of  15,000.  The  canyon  cities  of 
Wardner,  Burke,  Gem,  Mullan,  Mace,  and  Murray  yield 
wealth  untold.  There  was  never  greater  need  of  the 
gospel.  A  httle  time  ago  nearly  every  one  was  utterly 
without  it.  The  saloon  is  there,  the  brothel,  the  den  of 
shame,  the  gambling  hells,  and  no  gospel.  What  won- 
der that  life  goes  wrong! 

"I  went  into  a  mining  town  where  pistol  shots  were 
heard  every  half  hour,  two  fights  in  two  days,  blasphemy 


146  Leavening  the  Nation 

and  debauchery  in  the  drink-houses  and  no  faint  echo  of 
the  gospel  in  all  the  place.  I  went  into  the  saloons,  and 
said  to  the  men,  '  I  am  to  preach  in  the  Opera  House ' ; 
they  rephed,  '  That's  right,  elder,  we  need  it.'  Blotched, 
filthy,  delirious,  yet  sobered  at  once  by  the  very  thought 
of  religion,  to  which  early  years  were  no  stranger,  and 
saying,  'Give  us  your  hand,  elder,  we  fellers  need  it.' 

"  I  went  into  Mullan  with  my  missionary,  one  fair  day 
in  May,  piloted  by  our  veteran  Rev.  Jonathan  Edwards. 
We  found  five  disciples  of  Christ,  who  said,  'We  have 
waited  for  some  Christian  man  to  come  along.'  I  said, 
'  I  am  the  man;  late  it  may  be,  but  here  is  the  mission- 
ary, and  we  are  ready  for  work.'  We  secured  a  hall;  the 
people  came  gladly;  the  hall  was  filled.  The  miners 
came.  The  Spirit  of  God  was  in  the  place,  and  hearts 
were  touched.  There  was  a  pecuhar  tenderness,  and 
men  and  women  testified  to  the  love  of  God.  A  church 
was  formed.  They  called  my  missionary,  Rev.  E.  Owens, 
as  pastor,  and  he  accepted  at  once,  giving  up  the  plan  of 
a  fourth  year  of  study.  A  house  of  worship  was  built, 
costing  $2,000.  They  paid  all  but  $600.  On  the  fif- 
teenth day  of  December,  scarce  seven  months  from  the 
time  of  entering  the  place,  we  met  to  dedicate  the  beau- 
tiful house  of  God.  The  church  was  thronged,  the  in- 
terest deep  and  tender.  The  httle  mining  city  had  a 
new  atmosphere.  Songs  of  Zion  took  the  place  of  the 
ribald  songs  of  the  street.  The  spirit  of  prayer  filled  all 
hearts.  It  was  a  transformation.  We  had  hoped  and 
prayed  and  labored,  expecting  great  things;  but  the  re- 
sults were  so  much  greater  than  we  were  looking  for  that 
we  forgot  our  own  feeble  service,  and  said  reverently  in 
our  hearts,  Behold  what  God  hath  wrought." 

Closing  his  report,  Dr.  Kingsbury  adds:  "Let  it  not 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  147 

be  understood  that  the  places  I  have  cited  are  few,  far 
from  it;  never  such  increase  in  mining  as  now.  The 
prospectors  are  in  all  the  mountains.  Idaho  is  being 
transformed;  new  mines  in  the  Coeur  d'Alene  and  in  the 
valley  of  St.  Regis;  Buffalo  Hump  has  its  new  story. 
There  come  tidings  of  a  new  Cripple  Creek  at  Thunder 
Mountain,  20,000  people  eagerly  waiting  for  spring  time, 
when  they  will  throng  there  to  build  new  cities." 

While  mining  appears  to  overshadow  other  interests, 
creating  peculiar  missionary  demands,  yet  mining  is  not 
all  of  Idaho.  Commissioner  Hermann,  after  a  recent 
visit,  is  reported  as  saying:  "It  is  my  belief  that  Idaho 
is  soon  to  take  its  place  among  the  commercial  States, 
and  will  henceforth  be  known  in  the  great  markets  of  the 
United  States.  The  sheep  and  the  grains  as  well  as  the 
minerals  will  always  be  a  great  factor  in  her  develop- 
ment; but  one  thing  that  impressed  me  more  than  all 
else  was  her  great  and  growing  orchards,  and  the  prom- 
ise of  phenomenal  development  along  that  line." 

Rev.  R.  B.  Wright  of  Boise,  a  resident  of  years,  testi- 
fies: "The  East  is  learning  that  Southern  Idaho,  instead 
of  being  mostly  Great  Snake  River  Desert,  and  Broken 
Lava  Plateau,  as  it  is  marked  on  the  government  map, 
is  a  phenomenal  agricultural  country,  and  when  covered 
with  water,  is  almost  capable  of  supplying  the  nation 
with  fruit,  and  wool,  and  meat,  besides  a  goodly  portion 
of  its  precious  metals." 

Mountain  barriers  are  still  to  be  overcome  by  roads 
and  a  passage  from  south  to  north  wiU  not  always  re- 
quire a  detour  of  600  miles  through  corners  of  Oregon 
and  Washington.  The  future  of  Idaho,  with  its  magnifi- 
cent domain,  as  large  as  New  England  and  half  of  New 
York  together,  is  a  more  unsolved  problem  than  most 


148  Leavening  the  Nation 

western  States.  The  gospel  has  had  a  hard  struggle 
with  natural  conditions,  but  its  stakes  are  now  firmly 
planted,  and  it  will  go  on  to  lengthen  its  cords.  Already 
it  has  a  body  of  250  religious  organizations,  which 
gather  into  their  membership  thirty  per  cent  of  the  pop- 
ulation. All  of  this  practically  is  the  fruit  of  Home  Mis- 
sions and  its  work  is  only  begun.  Under  a  patient  and 
faithful  culture,  Idaho  is  destined  one  day  to  be  in  truth 
what  its  name  implies,  "The  Diadem  of  the  Mountains." 

Montana  was  set  apart  from  the  Territory  of  Idaho  in 
1864,  and  admitted  to  the  Union  in  1889  in  the  goodly 
company  of  North  and  South  Dakota  and  Washington. 
Its  early  conditions  and  history  are  strikingly  similar  to 
those  of  Idaho,  of  which  it  was  a  part — the  same  moun- 
tains; the  same  buried  wealth;  the  same  broad  plains 
and  plateaus  with  their  unlimited  grazing;  the  same 
struggle  with  Indian  tribes  and  reckless  adventurers ;  the 
same  early  years  of  excesses,  vices,  crimes,  and  their 
violent  suppression  by  vigilantes;  the  gradual  recovery 
of  law,  order,  and  morality;  and  the  gradual  ascendency 
of  permanent  settlers  who  have  made  Montana  the  peer 
of  any  western  State  in  loyalty,  enterprise,  intelligence, 
and  thrift. 

One  factor  in  the  chaotic  elements  of  early  Montana 
was  destined  to  enter  into  the  very  blood  and  sinew  of  the 
State.  It  is  a  far  cry  from  Montana  to  Missoim,  Ken- 
tucky, Virginia,  and  the  borderland  of  the  South.  But 
in  the  order  of  Providence,  the  majority  of  these  early 
pioneers  were  destined  to  come  from  these  regions. 
They  were  both  drawn  and  driven  northward — drawn 
by  the  discoveries  of  gold,  and  driven  by  the  uncomfort- 
able conditions  of  the  Civil  War  at  home.  Over  the 
plains  through  Utah  or  up  the  Missouri  River,  from 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  149 

three  to  four  months  of  travel  brought  these  southern 
emigrants  in  great  numbers  to  the  borders  of  Canada. 
Here  they  met  another  stream  from  New  England  and 
the  Middle  West.  Of  the  mingling  of  these  streams  and 
of  its  final  outcome,  Mr.  J.  H.  Crocker  discourses  in  an 
entertaining  article  published  in  the  ''New  England 
Magazine  "  of  February,  1900. 

"There  was  no  little  friction  for  a  time  between  these 
two  classes.  The  old  settlers  representing  both  sides, 
now  mellowed  and  reconciled  by  the  passing  years,  in- 
dulge in  reminiscences  that  represent  the  first  mining 
centers  as  veritable  rebel  camps.  Angry  discussions 
often  ended  in  blows  or  pistol  shots;  and  the  'Cause,' 
while  waning,  after  Vicksburg  and  Gettysburg,  was  still 
triumphant  in  the  gulches  of  Montana.  But  out  of  this 
rough  and  stalwart  mixing  of  Northerner  and  Southerner 
has  come  a  peculiar  and  pleasant  social  product.  The 
Northern  heart  has  been  warmed,  and  the  Southern  mind 
has  been  quickened.  The  one  has  become  more  hospit- 
able, and  the  other  more  intellectual.  It  has  been  a 
game  of  give  and  take  on  both  sides;  both  have  been 
enriched  and  blessed,  and  the  result  is  a  society  with  a 
heartiness  seldom  found  among  the  New  England  hills, 
and  with  an  intellectual  alertness  seldom  met  south  of 
the  Ohio  River.  The  Yankee  is  still  a  Yankee,  but 
emancipated  from  many  of  his  limitations;  the  South- 
erner is  still  a  child  of  the  sun,  but  freed  from  many  of 
his  prejudices.  Both  human  plants  have  been  repotted 
and  cross-fertilized.  .  .  .  Conditions  have  been  favorable. 
Strong  natures  and  rugged  types  met  in  a  free  and  un- 
conventional competition.  The  wildness  of  the  frontier 
life  fostered  liberty;  the  hardships  developed  sympathy; 
the  newness  stimulated  originality;  the  glorious  climate 


150  Leavening  the  Nation 

put  vigor  into  the  slower  Southern  blood,  while  it  exerted 
a  mellowing  influence  upon  the  New  England  intensity 
of  temperament.  The  descendant  of  the  Puritan  as  he 
looks  about  himself;  and  notes  with  satisfaction  the 
libraries,  schools,  and  charities,  of  this  remote  land,  may 
well  exclaim  with  pride,  The  genius  of  New  England  is 
supreme  even  here!  But  with  no  less  satisfaction  can 
the  Southerners  say,  as  they  stand  in  a  group  by  them- 
selves, We  have  at  least  melted  the  ice  off  these  Yankees." 

Mr.  Crocker  has  here  described  with  a  free  hand  a 
feature  of  Montana  society  which  has  often  impressed 
the  thoughtful  tourist.  Among  the  providencies  of  the 
Civil  War  which  have  excited  the  wonder  of  reverent 
students  of  history,  the  fact  is  not  unworthy  of  recogni- 
tion, that  just  when  North  and  South  were  putting  two 
types  of  civilization  into  deadly  conflict  upon  the  field 
of  battle,  Providence  was  directing  two  streams  of  im- 
migration, representing  both  sides  of  the  conflict,  around 
the  contending  armies  into  this  far  Northwest,  where  by 
mingling,  they  came  to  know  each  other,  and  knowing, 
learned  the  lesson  of  mutual  charity,  and  discovered  for 
themselves,  and  for  the  nation  North  and  South,  the 
common  ground  of  peace  and  unity. 

Says  the  kindly  critic  from  whom  we  have  already 
quoted:  "Montana  history  is  not  free  from  blemishes  that 
sadly  blot  its  pages.  Its  political  activities  include  some 
base  methods  and  ignoble  agencies,  alas !  not  absent  from 
some  other  States,  that  bring  a  sense  of  shame,  not  free 
from  fear  lest  the  days  pass  without  repentance.  Par- 
tisan feuds  and  personal  enmities  have  too  long  held  the 
people  in  thrall.  Mammon  has  a  powerful  scepter, 
while  too  many  have  surrendered  to  animal  instincts 
and  live  but  to  feed  the  brutal  passions.    These  evils  are 


Wyoming,  Montana,  Idaho  151 

incident  to  communities  so  new,  so  robust  and  so  rich. 
The  great  remedial  agencies  are  also  at  work." 

Remembering  the  early  history  of  Montana  and  the 
social  and  moral  drawbacks  described,  it  is  a  pleasant 
surprise  to  find  among  these  remedial  agencies  now  at 
work,  273  churches  and  religious  organizations.  For 
missionary  work  in  Montana  is  not  only  expensive,  it  is 
beset  with  difficulties.  The  church  life,  and  still  more 
truly  denominational  enterprise,  make  but  a  faint  appeal 
to  its  people.  "But,  on  the  other  hand,  true  Christian 
manhood  is  respected,  and  the  gospel  of  Christ  is  meas- 
ured, by  what  it  accomplishes.  If  the  Church  can  dem- 
onstrate its  power  to  uplift  men,  to  make  them  sober 
and  industrious,  cause  them  to  become  better  husbands, 
fathers,  and  citizens,  it  will  receive  a  liberal  support."  ^ 

The  Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society  entered 
the  State  in  1882  at  Billings.  The  settlement  was  named 
after  Frederick  Billings  of  Vermont,  and  the  first  church 
was  built  by  his  generous  donation  of  S10,000.  Churches 
at  Big  Timber,  Helena,  livingston,  Great  Falls,  Red 
Lodge,  Colimibus,  Missoula,  Butte,  and  at  other  points, 
have  followed.  Methodists  are  doing  a  generous  share 
of  this  remedial  work,  Baptists,  Presbj^terians,  and  Epis- 
copalians as  well.  ''Yet  all  the  church  buildings  in 
Butte  combined  would  not  seat  one  twentieth  of  the 
population.  Thousands  of  men,  to  say  nothing  of  wo- 
men and  youth,  never  darken  their  doors.  But  they  go 
somewhere.  There  are  about  225  saloons.  The  lead- 
ing daily  paper  of  the  city  gives  $11,250  as  a  low  estimate 
of  their  daily  receipts.  Whole  squares  of  the  town  are 
given  up  to  houses  of  prostitution,  and  gambling  dens,  if 

^W.  S.  Bell,  Home  Missionary,  Jan.,  1902,  p.  152. 


152  Leavening  the  Nation 

not  open  to  the  pubhc,  are  easily  found."  '  Against 
such  systems  of  iniquity,  the  few  and  scattered  chiu-ches 
resemble  an  almost  forlorn  hope,  yet  one  quarter  of  the 
people  of  Montana  are  gathered  in  these  churches  to-day. 
That  proportion  steadily  increases  from  year  to  year.  It 
is  only  a  question  of  time  and  of  patient  continuance  in 
home-missionary  endeavor  when  the  Christian  stock  of 
the  Mountain  State  shall  outnumber  the  forces  of  evil. 

*  W.  S.  Bell,  Home  Missionary,  Jan.,  1902,  p.  155. 


XI 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE-COLORADO, 
OKLAHOMA 

One  hundred  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase,  that  vast  tract,  beyond  a  narrow  fringe  along 
the  western  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  was  terra  incognita, 
except  to  the  native  Indians  and  the  neighboring  Mexi- 
cans. What  they  knew  of  it  was  inaccessible  knowledge 
to  its  new  owners,  who  now  had  before  them  the  gigantic 
task  of  exploration  and  settlement. 

Three  years  later,  1806,  Colorado  was  barely  entered, 
not  explored,  by  Zebulon  Montgomery  Pike  of  New 
Jersey,  an  ex-officer  of  the  Revolutionary  army.  With 
a  party  of  seventy-three  whites  and  Indians  he  sailed  up 
the  Missouri  and  the  Osage,  crossed  the  country  to  the 
upper  waters  of  the  Arkansas,  and  ascended  these,  until 
the  blue  summit  of  a  very  high  moimtain  appeared  in 
the  northwest.  It  was  the  peak  that  now  bears  his 
name,  rising  near  the  center  of  the  present  State  of  Colo- 
rado. Leaving  his  boats,  he  thought  to  reach  it  by  an 
easy  march,  but  learned,  as  later  tourists  have  often  dis- 
covered, that  Colorado  distances  are  deceptive.  After 
many  hours  of  painful  approach  through  deep  snows,  he 
and  his  party  turned  back  to  camp  when  fifteen  miles 
from  the  base  of  Pike's  Peak. 

No  further  exploration  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  region 
was  attempted  until  1819,  when  by  direction  of  Secretary 

153 


154  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  War  Calhoun,  an  expedition  of  mihtary  men  and 
scientists  reached  the  South  Park  by  a  different  route 
from  that  of  Pike.  It  was  the  report  of  this  expedition 
that  gave  rise  to  an  error  which  was  perpetuated  for  years 
upon  every  school  map  in  the  country,  and  which  sensi- 
bly checked  the  tide  of  western  migration.  The  whole 
region  between  the  thirty-ninth  and  forty-ninth  parallels, 
and  for  500  miles  east  of  the  Rockies,  was  miscalled  "a 
waste  of  sand  and  stones,"  and  was  designated  as  "The 
Great  American  Desert."  "This  impression  was  to 
some  extent  the  key  which  kept  Colorado  a  locked  treas- 
ure house  until  Oregon  and  California  had  both  been 
settled,  and  proved  to  be  rich  agricultural  countries  even 
where  they  had  appeared  as  much  deserts  as  Colorado."* 

The  next  government  expedition,  under  Fremont  in 
1842,  found  no  advance  of  settlement  in  Colorado.  It 
was  in  1846  that  the  "Mormon  battalion,"  being  driven 
out  of  Illinois  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  tarried  one 
winter  at  Pueblo,  but  went  on  to  Utah  in  the  spring. 
As  late  as  1853  the  white  population  was  exceedingly 
scanty,  and  clustered  around  the  forts  for  protection 
against  Indians.  It  was  really  the  reflex  of  the  human 
tide  which  had  been  pouring  into  Cahfornia  for  gold,  that 
finally  opened  the  treasures  of  Colorado  to  the  world, 
and  gave  the  first  impulse  to  its  settlement. 

About  this  time  (1852),  the  first  definite  discovery  of 
gold  was  made  by  a  Cherokee  cattle-trader  from  Mis- 
souri. Other  discoveries  followed  previous  to  1860, 
which  resulted  in  the  organization  of  Arapahoe  county 
and  the  settlement  of  Aurania,  which  may  be  regarded 
as  the  beginnings  of  Colorado.     But  the  early  emigra- 

'  H.  H.  Bancroft,  vol.  25,  p.  349. 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  155 

tion  was  checked  and  the  claims  of  Colorado  seriously 
discounted  by  lying  reports  of  a  rich  gold  find  near  Pike's 
Peak.  The  story,  sent  out  broadcast,  produced  a  sort 
of  craze  at  the  East  that  set  in  motion  thousands  of  emi- 
grants toward  Pike's  Peak,  soon  to  be  followed  by  a 
panic  of  returning  and  enraged  gold-seekers.  A  familiar 
legend  on  the  canvas  cover  of  the  emigrant  wagon  going 
westward  at  this  time  was,  "Pike's  Peak  or  bust,"  and 
the  owner  of  at  least  one  returning  wagon,  the  type  of 
many,  had  the  candor  to  add  the  word  "Busted."  Of 
the  150,000  persons  en  route  for  Colorado  across  the 
plains  in  the  spring  of  1859,  it  is  estimated  that  50,000 
were  turned  back  by  unfavorable  reports,  and  of  the 
100,000  that  reached  the  base  of  the  mountain,  less  than 
40,000  remained  there. 

This  check  in  settlement,  however,  was  only  for  a  time. 
There  was  gold  and  there  were  other  values  in  Colorado 
which  could  not  be  discounted.  Between  1860  and  1870 
population  advanced  from  34,000  to  40,000,  and  during 
the  next  twenty  years  cUmbed  to  412,000.  The  latest 
census  shows  more  than  half  a  million.  The  early 
features  of  society  were  of  the  usual  kind  in  rapidly  set- 
thng  mining  regions; — vice,  crime,  violence,  outlawry, 
impotency  of  the  law  and  the  temporary  substitution 
of  self-appointed  committees  of  safety;  yet  all  the  while, 
gathering  and  gradually  strengthening,  a  permanent, 
self-respecting,  and  public-spirited  people  which  have 
made  Colorado  as  clean  and  safe  a  commonwealth  as 
Vermont  or  Connecticut. 

The  Territory  was  organized  in  1861  from  parts  of 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  New  Mexico,  and  Utah.  Statehood 
followed  in  1876,  for  which  reason  Colorado  is  known  as 
the  "Centennial  State."     It  has  an  area  of  103,925 


156  Leavening  the  Nation 

square  miles,  with  three  natural  divisions — the  moun- 
tain range — including  the  Park  system, — the  foothills, 
and  the  plains.  About  one  third  of  the  State,  once  in- 
cluded in  the  Great  American  Desert,  is  grazing  and 
agricultural;  the  dryness  of  the  cUmate  makes  it  a 
favorite  resort  for  invalids. 

With  the  first  considerable  movement  of  population 
toward  Colorado,  the  home  missionary  took  the  trail. 
Two  years  before  Territorial  organization,  in  1859,  open- 
air  meetings  were  held  at  Gregory  Diggings  by  Lewis 
Hamilton,  and  a  union  church  composed  of  all  denomi- 
nations was  formed.  One  year  later,  G.  W.  Fisher,  a 
Methodist,  organized  a  church  at  Central  City,  so  called 
because  it  was  the  center  of  the  gold-mining  region.  A 
church  of  the  same  order  was  also  organized  at  Black 
Hawk  in  1862.  Presbyterian  churches  were  gathered 
at  Central  City  and  Black  Hawk  in  1862-3. 

The  American  Home  Missionary  Society  opened  the 
first  Congregational  chiu"ch  of  the  Territory  in  Central 
City  in  1863.  William  Crawford  was  pastor,  and  was 
succeeded  by  E.  P.  Tenney  and  others.  A  house  was 
erected  at  a  cost  of  $12,000,  but  the  church  was  closed  in 
1876.  Baptists  began  in  1864,  closing  in  1879.  More 
than  one  Episcopal  church  at  the  same  place  had  a  simi- 
lar fate.  Such  records  are  not  imusual  in  mining  regions 
where  the  people  come  and  go,  and  often  more  frequently 
go  than  come.  The  most  promising  outlook  is  often 
suddenly  clouded  by  a  few  removals  among  the  support- 
ing membership  of  a  missionary  church.  Mr.  Crawford, 
writing  of  his  field  in  1863,  remarks: 

"Perhaps  there  are  some  who  think  our  society  is  so 
rude  and  wicked  that  there  is  no  living  here  in  com- 
fort.    Wicked  enough  and  rude  enough  it  is,  but  not 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  157 

wholly  so.  In  few  places  will  one  meet  with  more  well- 
informed  and  cultivated  people  or  with  pleasanter  fami- 
lies. Our  people  demand  and  can  appreciate  good 
preaching.  Many  of  them  have  been  accustomed  to 
the  best.  Thus,  when  our  church  of  twenty-one  mem- 
bers was  organized,  we  found  that  we  had  one  deacon 
from  the  Tabernacle  Chm-ch,  New  York  City,  one  from 
Cambridgeport,  one  from  Worcester,  and  one  from  Nor- 
ridgewock,  Maine;  yet,  with  so  much  good  material,  the 
church  was  pleased  to  elect  two  deacons  who  had  not 
before  borne  the  title."  It  was  a  church  of  such  promise 
that  languished  and  died  by  continuous  blood-letting, 
in  sixteen  years. 

Church  planting  in  Denver  has  had  a  hardier  growth 
because  of  more  stable  conditions.  The  mother  Congre- 
gational church  was  bom  in  1864,  and  around  it  have 
sprung  up  thirteen  churches,  some  of  them  among  the 
strongest  in  the  city,  and  all  of  them  of  home-missionary 
planting.  The  vigorous  church  at  Colorado  Springs 
dates  back  to  1874  and  that  of  Boulder  to  1864.  These 
are  the  pioneer  churches  of  Congregational  Colorado. 
Later  years  have  swelled  this  number  in  the  State  to 
more  than  eighty. 

Early  Colorado  was  fortimate  in  the  character  of  its 
church  leaders;  among  them  Dr  James  B.  Gregg,  a  Har- 
vard graduate  who  has  occupied  the  pastorate  of  the 
First  Church  of  Colorado  Springs  for  20  years.  In  this 
time  he  has  seen  the  growth  of  the  State  almost  from  the 
beginning  and  has  been  a  wise  and  active  counsellor  in 
its  religious  development.  Rev.  B.  F.  Perkins  was 
General  Missionary  in  1878  when  he  organized  the  church 
of  Silverton.  He  was  succeeded  by  Rev.  Stewart  Shel- 
don, whose  labors  in  South  Dakota  in  connection  with 


158  Leavening  the  Nation 

his  brother-in-law,  Joseph  Ward,  are  recorded  else- 
where. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1878  that  Colorado  received  a 
superintendent  in  the  person  of  Joseph  W.  Pickett, 
whose  work  was  greatly  prospered,  and  whose  memory 
is  still  blessed  among  the  churches.  His  field  was  an 
immense  district  including  Colorado,  Wyoming,  New 
Mexico,  Utah,  and  Idaho,  covering  half  a  million  square 
miles.  If  one  man  were  ever  born  to  fill  such  a  diocese, 
Mr.  Pickett  could  do  it.  Eighteen  months  of  service 
were  given  him  before  his  tragical  death,  and  four  months 
only  of  that  period  were  spent  in  liis  home  with  his 
family.  The  other  fourteen  were  consumed  in  travel 
on  foot  and  in  mountain  stages,  now  in  the  Black  Hills 
of  Wyoming  and  South  Dakota,  now  on  the  plains,  and 
again  among  the  mountains  of  Colorado.  His  energy 
was  indomitable;  his  strength  seemed  exhaustless. 
Yet  he  had  not  the  physique  of  a  giant.  The  zeal  that 
never  slacked  for  a  moment  was  fed  from  two  sources — 
a  hopeful  spirit  with  which  Providence  had  liberally 
endowed  him,  and  a  rare  consecration  which  was  re- 
newed hourly  by  prayer  and  communion  with  God. 

One  has  said  of  his  sagacity:  "He  understood  men  and 
knew  how  to  take  hold  of  them.  He  never  needed  a 
second  introduction.  The  drivers  of  the  stage-coaches 
on  which  he  travelled  knew  him.  He  could  call  them  by 
name  and  tell  you  much  of  their  history."  He  knew 
and  loved  Colorado  well  and  had  a  boundless  faith  in  her 
future.  On  the  fly-leaf  of  Fossett's  "Colorado,"  which 
he  presented  to  his  wife  on  her  birthday,  he  wrote: 
"Shall  it  be  our  daily  prayer,  my  dear  wife,  that  as  I 
have  given  you  this  book  and  written  your  name  upon 
it,  so  Christ  will  give  us  this  State  that  we,  when  fife's 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  159 

work  is  done,  may  give  it  to  him  with  His  own  name 
written  in  endiu-ing  characters  on  all  its  mountains, 
valleys,  and  precious  things."  ^ 

Often  he  would  take  his  Bible  and  go  up  on  the  moun- 
tain side,  and  looking  down  as  Christ  did  upon  Jerusa- 
lem, plead  for  the  mining  camp  at  his  feet.  His  memory 
will  have  no  nobler  monument  than  his  work  in  the 
Black  Hills — seven  churches,  five  ministers  on  the 
ground,  four  church  buildings,  three  parsonages,  an 
Association,  a  Bible  Society,  and  an  academy,  all  the 
work  of  about  one  year.^ 

Joseph  Pickett  was  not  beyond  the  temptations  which 
beset  those  who  dwell  in  a  land  of  gold,  but  he  had  the 
whole  armor  of  God  with  which  to  ward  them  off.  "On 
one  occasion  in  the  Black  Hills,  going  over  from  Lead 
City  to  Central,  he  discovered  some  fine  specimens  of 
ore  and  gathered  them  up  in  his  handkerchief.  But  find- 
ing himself  pondering  upon  them  and  their  probable 
value,  and  upon  making  a  mining  claim,  and  perceiving 
that  the  matter  was  taking  some  hold  of  his  mind,  and 
that  it  might  distract  his  thoughts,  he  at  once  shook  his 
handkerchief  to  the  winds,  and  repeating  aloud  his 
motto,  knelt  upon  the  ground  and  renewed  his  consecra- 
tion to  his  life  work."  ^  The  motto  to  which  Dr.  Salter 
here  alludes  was  from  Paul  to  the  Philippians :  "  This  one 
thing  I  do,  forgetting  those  things  which  are  behind,  and 
reaching  out  to  those  things  which  are  before,  I  press 
toward  the  mark  for  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God 
in  Christ  Jesus." 

*R.  T.   Cross,   Funeral  Address;  Dr,   Salter's  "Memoirs  of 
Joseph  W.  Pickett,"  p.  140. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  141. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  148. 


i6o  Leavening  the  Nation 

This  beautiful,  active  Ufe,  since  it  must  go  out,  ended 
in  a  mercifully  sudden  death  by  the  overturning  of  the 
stage-coach  on  which  he  was  descending  the  mountains 
toward  Leadville.  Like  Elijah,  he  was  caught  up  in  a 
flash  of  time  to  a  great  reward.  But  his  mantle  fell  upon 
Colorado  and  the  Black  Hills;  and  many  a  despairing 
worker  who  never  saw  Joseph  Pickett,  and  of  whom  the 
Superintendent  never  heard,  has  taken  a  new  lease  of 
courage  from  the  story  of  his  brave  spirit  and  his  flaming 
zeal. 

Mr.  Pickett  was  succeeded  in  the  spring  of  1880  by 
Charles  C.  Creegan,  who  served  as  superintendent  of  the 
same  great  field  another  eighteen  months.  In  that  time 
besides  visiting  New  Mexico,  Wyoming,  Utah,  and  the 
Black  Hills,  he  organized  chiu-ches  at  Buena  Vista, 
Alpine,  Gothic,  Crested  Butte,  Gunnison,  Breckenridge, 
Kokomo,  Robinson,  Red  Cliff,  Durango,  Rock  Spring, 
and  Provo,  and  assisted  in  organizing,  at  Highland  Lake 
and  West  Denver,  eighteen  churches  during  the  first 
twelve  months  of  his  service.  In  October,  1882,  he  was 
called  to  the  secretaryship  of  the  New  York  Home 
Missionary  Society,  leaving  his  enduring  mark  on  the 
home-missionary  history  of  Colorado. 

Addison  Blanchard  followed  Dr.  Creegan.  Meantime 
the  field  had  been  divided  and  Colorado  and  Wyoming 
made  a  separate  district.  During  the  three  years  of  Mr. 
Blanchard's  supervision,  churches  were  planted  at  Oak 
Creek,  East  Pueblo,  Green  River,  Buffalo,  Sheridan, 
Big  Horn,  and  three  new  churches  in  Denver.  But  his 
chief  care  was  strengthening  and  establishing  churches 
already  organized,  some  of  which  had  been  seriously 
weakened  by  the  depression  of  mining  interests.  In 
this  and  in  all  his  work  he  proved  an  apt  and  successful 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  i6i 

superintendent.  For  twenty-one  months  succeeding 
Dr.  Blanchard,  Roselle  T.  Cross,  while  still  pastor  at 
West  Denver,  acted  as  superintendent  of  Colorado,  alone ; 
during  which  Olivet  Church,  Denver,  was  gathered,  Park 
Avenue  Church  resuscitated,  and  Montrose,  Julesburg, 
Otis,  Hyde,  and  a  second  church  at  Cheyenne  were 
organized.  Clarendon  M.  Sanders  and  Horace  Sander- 
son, worthy  successors  of  the  early  leaders,  have  brought 
these  beginnings  to  strength  and  have  added  many  to 
their  number.^ 

One  or  two  samples  taken  from  Colorado  may  serve  to 
illustrate  the  working  and  the  value  of  Home  Missions, 
— not  that  they  are  peculiar  or  infrequent,  but  because 
they  are  examples  of  quick  growth  in  a  field  of  more 
than  ordinary  difficulties.  Boulevard  Chiu-ch,  Denver,  in 
twenty  years  has  grown  from  a  feeble  band  of  seventeen 
to  a  membership  of  350,  and  has  a  Simday-school  of  540 
members,  which  has  been  called  the  "Star  of  the  State 
in  merit  and  numbers."  Plymouth  Church,  Denver, 
from  hke  feeble  beginnings,  has  in  nineteen  years,  chiefly 
under  the  ministry  of  Dr.  F.  T.  Bayley,  attained  to  a 
membership  of  600,  and  is  the  largest  of  its  order  in  the 
State.  It  has  contributed  more  than  $8,000  to  missions, 
its  latest  gift  being  $1,100.  To  the  Home  Missionary 
Society,  which  mothered  the  church  in  its  infancy,  it 
contributed  during  the  last  twelve  months  $750.  These 
are  instances  from  the  city. 

One  example  from  the  mining  camps  must  suffice,  and 
as  this  one  fairly  illustrates  the  methods  of  home-mis- 
sionary work  in  the  whole  Rocky  Mountain  district,  it 

*  For  a  graphic  account  of  conditions  at  this  time,  see  a  series 
of  twenty  articles  by  R.  T.  Cross  in  Home  Missionary  of  1895-96- 
97. 


i62  Leavening  the  Nation 

will  bear  a  more  careful  study.  Cripple  Creek  is  a  name 
become  famous  in  the  mining  world;  but  its  early  mis- 
sionary history  is  not  the  least  among  its  claims  to  re- 
nown. Twelve  years  ago,  it  was  a  small  farming  com- 
munity of  a  dozen  people  known  at  Freemont.  To-day 
it  has  a  population  of  50,000.  In  these  twelve  years,  it 
has  unearthed  treasure  to  the  value  of  $104,000,000, 
which  has  paid  $25,000,000  in  dividends.  In  the  winter 
of  1892,  Supt.  Sanderson  started  for  Cripple  Creek, 
following  a  large  tent,  organ,  chairs,  lamps,  and  singing- 
books,  which  had  been  sent  on  before.  He  found 
saloons  and  gambling  dens  already  established,  but  no 
gospel  in  any  form.  The  place  was  crowded,  but  the 
Superintendent  found  a  room  where  he  could  bunk  with 
eleven  others,  with  one  small  window  for  ventilation 
which  was  closed  at  night  to  avoid  the  draft. 

By  permission  of  the  owner  he  appointed  his  first 
service  at  a  just  completed  store.  There  were  no  stoves 
in  the  camp,  and  the  heating  problem  was  solved  by 
piling  up  a  foot  of  gravel  on  the  floor,  building  the  fire 
upon  it,  and  covering  the  whole  with  a  tin  barrel  fur- 
nished with  a  smoke-pipe.  Two  preaching  services  and 
two  Sunday-schools  were  held  on  the  first  day,  and  the 
hungry  people  would  have  welcomed  more. 

On  the  second  Sunday,  services  were  held  in  another 
store  and  during  the  week  lots  for  permanent  occupancy 
were  contracted  for  and  lumber  was  bought  to  build  the 
frame  of  a  large  tent.  Over  this  frame  the  canvas  was 
drawn,  the  sides  and  ends  were  boarded  up,  and  the 
name,  "Whosoever  Will,"  painted  over  the  entrance. 
Ninety  out  of  a  population  of  a  few  hundred  responded 
at  the  first  service.  In  one  corner  of  the  Whosoever 
Will  tent  the  Superintendent  made  a  little  room  for  him- 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  163 

self,  8  by  10,  and  here  he  ate,  studied  and  slept,  "when 
he  was  not  sawdng  wood." 

On  the  second  Sabbath,  141  were  present,  ninety  per 
cent.  men.  They  loved  to  sing  and  they  sang.  The 
sound  rolled  out  over  the  camp,  and  made  almost  needless 
the  metal  triangle  which  served  as  a  church-bell.  They 
hstened  also  and  approved.  "Don't  apologize  for  the 
truth,  pardner,"  said  one  rough  miner.  "Give  it  to  us 
straight."  Famihes  began  to  come  in,  and  no  day- 
school  for  children.  The  Superintendent  offered  the 
tent  for  a  schoolhouse  if  the  people  would  pay  for  a 
teacher,  and  rashly  promised  to  saw  the  wood.  The 
school  attendance  the  first  day  was  about  twenty,  and 
one  entry  in  the  missionary's  diary  for  the  day  reads, 
* '  Sawed  wood  five  hours . "  The  Whosoever  Will  tent  was 
opened  every  afternoon  and  evening  as  a  free  reading- 
room,  game-room,  and  a  place  for  men  to  write  letters. 
Before  this  there  was  hardly  a  room  in  town  where  one 
could  write  a  letter  home,  unless  it  were  a  saloon.  A 
mother  wTote:  "Will  you  look  up  my  boy  in  Cripple 
Creek.  I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  him  and  it  was 
written  on  a  saloon  letter-head.  He  was  a  good  boy 
when  he  left  home,  but  I  fear  for  him  now."  It  was  thus 
that  the  church  at  Cripple  Creek  began  its  career  as  a 
"rescue  mission,"  a  feature  which  it  has  always  magni- 
fied. 

The  present  pastor,  Rev.  G.  W.  Ray,  preaches  on  the 
street  three  or  four  times  a  week,  gathering  an  audience 
of  five  hundred  men  in  a  few  minutes.  A  volunteer  choir 
and  chorus  go  with  him  to  sing.  Several  of  the  most  in- 
fluential people  of  Cripple  Creek  have  been  gathered  by 
these  methods  into  the  church,  which  nimibers  now  over 
200.    Their  missionary  contributions  last  year  were  $915. 


164  Leavening  the  Nation 

They  support  a  foreign  missionary.  They  have  pur- 
chased lots  and  built  a  chapel  on  the  west  side  for  Sun- 
day-school and  religious  services.  Two  thousand  dollars 
have  been  expended  in  the  foundation  of  a  boys'  gym- 
nasium, and  ten  thousand  more  are  in  sight  for  a  build- 
ing. The  seed  from  which  this  vigorous  tree  started  was 
a  very  small  grant  of  home-missionary  money.  In  spite 
of  fire  which  destroyed  both  church  and  parsonage,  and 
the  homes  of  many  of  its  members,  in  spite  also  of  busi- 
ness depressions  and  frequent  removals,  the  cheap 
"Whosoever  Will"  tent  of  ten  years  ago  is  to-day  re- 
placed by  $15,000  worth  of  property;  and  not  least  of 
results,  six  persons  have  gone  out  from  Cripple  Creek 
Church  into  active  Christian  work.  Mr.  Sanderson,  in 
closing  the  account  from  which  this  narrative  is  con- 
densed, exclaims,  "Do  Home  Missions  pay?  Yes,  a 
thousand  per  cent,  annually."  ^ 

Colorado  State  is  scarcely  more  than  twenty-five  years 
old.  Six  hundred  and  fifty  religious  organizations  have 
been  opened,  nearly  every  one  by  the  agency  of  organ- 
ized Home  Missions.  Their  places  of  worship  have  a 
seating  capacity  of  125,000,  and  represent  a  property 
value  of  $5,000,000,  and  more  than  one  fifth  of  the  people 
are  found  in  the  membership  of  the  churches.  Look 
back  at  the  early  conditions;  remember  the  natural 
barriers;  the  long  delayed  settlement;  the  quahty  of  the 
first  comers;  the  chaos  of  elements  to  be  subdued, 
assimilated  or  thrown  off ;  the  slow  birth  of  order,  law, 
and  moral  standards ;  the  fever  of  mining  that  demoral- 
izes the  best  of  men,  and  taints  the  best  in  any  man ; — 
and  the  wonder  grows  that  Colorado,  in  those  religious 

'See  E.  H.  Abbott,  Outlook,  Oct.  11,  1902. 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  165 

forces  which  measure  the  moral  strength  of  a  common- 
wealth, should  stand,  as  it  does,  abreast  of  the  three 
agricultural  States  of  Nebraska,  Kansas,  and  Oregon. 

Oklahoma. — With  Oklahoma  we  reach  the  last  frag- 
ment of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  to  be  organized  as  a 
Territory.  The  name  is  interpreted  to  mean  "Beautiful 
Land."  A  quaint  report  made  by  a  Spanish  explorer 
who  visited  the  region  in  1662,  describes  it  as  "pleasant 
fields,  that  not  in  all  the  Indies  of  Peru  and  New  Spain, 
nor  in  Evu-ope,  are  to  be  found  scenery  so  pleasant  and 
dehghtful  and  covered  with  buffalo  or  cows  of  Cibola, 
which  cause  notable  admiration;  with  many  and  very 
beautiful  rivers,  marshes  and  springs,  studded  with  luxu- 
rious forests  and  fruit  trees  of  various  kinds  which  pro- 
duce most  palatable  plums;  large  and  fine  grapes  in 
great  clusters  and  of  extremely  good  flavor  like  those  of 
Spain  and  even  better;  many  mulberry  trees  to  raise 
silk;  oak,  elm,  ash,  and  poplar  trees  with  other  kinds  of 
trees;  useful  and  fragrant  plants,  clover,  flax,  hemp, 
marjoram,  high  enough  to  hide  a  man  on  horseback; 
abundance  of  roses,  strawberries  without  end,  small  but 
savory;  many  Castihan  partridges,  quails,  sandpipers, 
turkeys,  and  pheasants;  deer,  stag,  or  elk  in  very  great 
numbers,  and  even  one  kind  of  them  as  large  and  de- 
veloped as  our  horses.  Through  these  pleasant  and 
delightful  fields  we  marched  throughout  the  months  of 
March,  April,  and  May,  and  on  the  Kalends  of  June 
arrived  at  a  large  river  they  called  Mischipi."  ^ 

Two  hundred  and  thirty  years  later,  in  1890,  these 
pleasant  fields  were  organized  into  a  Territory  of  the 
United  States,  and  strange  as  it  may  appear,  little  more 

'Encyclopedia  Britannica,  "Oklahoma." 


1 66  Leavening  the  Nation 

was  known  about  them  among  their  white  owners,  save 
that  the  early  stories  of  their  fertility  and  beauty  had 
not  been  exaggerated. 

The  Territory,  as  at  present  constituted,  contains 
39,000  square  miles,  6,000  more  than  Maine,  and  2,000 
less  than  Ohio.  At  the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  Creeks  and 
Seminoles  held  possession  under  treaties  of  1856,  but  the 
benefits  of  these  treaties  they  had  forfeited  by  entering 
into  alliances  with  the  Southern  Confederacy.  For  this 
reason  the  United  States  Government  demanded  the 
return  of  the  western  half  of  the  Creek  reserve,  and  all 
the  Seminole  holdings,  and  transferred  both  tribes  to 
reserves  further  east.  The  tracts  thus  recovered  appear, 
by  the  language  of  the  new  treaty,  to  have  been  desired 
by  the  Government  for  the  use  of  other  Indian  tribes  or 
for  f reedmen ;  but  they  were  never  used  for  these  pur- 
poses. Thus  it  came  about  that  Oklahoma,  before  1880, 
had  returned  to  its  original  status  of  "  public  lands," 
and  was  in  a  condition  to  be  opened  for  settlement  at  any 
time  and  in  any  way  provided  by  the  national  Govern- 
ment. 

As  was  natural,  certain  restless  and  ambitious  men 
sought  to  anticipate  the  permission  of  Government. 
Cattle-traders  in  considerable  numbers  were  grazing  their 
herds  in  the  Territory  without  the  right  to  do  so.  Rail- 
roads had  also  obtained  a  right  of  way  through  the 
country.  Encouraged  by  these  liberties,  in  the  fall  of 
1880,  an  organized  company  of  600,  under  David  S. 
Payne,  with  325  wagons,  attempted  to  rush  the  whole 
question  of  settlement  by  taking  possession  of  the  land. 
Payne  and  his  party  were  driven  back  by  United 
States  troops.  Four  or  five  similar  attempts  at  illegal 
occupation  were  made,  all  of  which  were  defeated  by 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  167 

government  soldiers.  It  was  not  until  April  of  1889 
that  the  Territory  was  declared  open  for  settlement,  and 
the  great  rush  began.  The  story  of  that  invasion  has 
growTi  familiar  by  many  rehearsals.  The  following 
picture,  from  the  pen  of  Richard  Harding  Davis,  pre- 
serves better  than  many  others  the  striking  features  of 
that  event: 

"The  history  of  the  pioneers  and  their  invasion  of 
their  undiscovered  comitry,  not  only  shows  how  far  the 
West  is  from  the  East,  but  how  much  we  have  changed 
our  ways  of  doing  things  from  the  days  of  the  Pilgrim 
fathers  to  those  of  the  modern  pilgrims,  the  'boomers' 
and  '  sooners'  of  the  end  of  the  century.  We  have  seen 
pictures  in  our  school-books  of  the  Mayflower's  people 
kneeling  on  the  shore,  the  long,  anxious  voyage  behind 
them  and  the  rock-bound  coast  of  their  new  home  before 
them,  with  the  Indians  looking  on  doubtfully  from  be- 
hind the  pine-trees.  I  should  like  you  to  place  in  con- 
trast with  this,  the  opening  of  Oklahoma  Territory  to  the 
new  white  settlers  three  years  ago.  These  modern  pil- 
grims stand  in  rows  twenty  feet  deep,  separated  from  the 
promised  land,  not  by  an  ocean,  but  by  a  line  scratched 
in  the  earth  with  the  point  of  a  soldier's  bayonet.  The 
long  row  toeing  this  line  are  bending  forward,  panting 
with  excitement,  and  looking  with  greedy  eyes  towards 
the  new  Canaan ;  the  women  with  dresses  tucked  up  to 
their  knees,  the  men  stripped  of  coats  and  waistcoats  for 
the  coming  race. 

"  And  then,  a  trumpet  call,  answered  by  a  thousand 
hungry  yells  from  all  along  the  line,  and  hmidreds  of 
men  and  women  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  break  away 
across  the  prairie,  the  stronger  pushing  down  the  weak, 
and  those  on  horseback  riding  over,  and  in  some  cases 


1 68  Leavening  the  Nation 

killing,  those  on  foot,  in  a  mad,  unseemly  race  for  some- 
thing they  are  getting  for  nothing. 

"These  pilgrims  do  not  drop  on  one  knee  to  give  thanks 
decorously,  as  did  Columbus,  according  to  the  twenty- 
dollar  bills,  but  fall  on  both  knees  and  hammer  stakes 
into  the  ground,  and  pull  them  up  again,  and  drive  them 
down  somewhere  else  at  the  place  which  they  hope  will 
eventually  become  a  corner  lot  facing  the  post-office,  and 
drag  up  the  next  man's  stake  and  threaten  him  with  a 
Winchester  because  he  is  on  their  land  which  they  have 
owned  for  the  last  three  minutes.  And  there  are  no 
Indians  on  this  scene.  They  have  been  paid  one  dollar 
and  twenty-five  cents  an  acre  for  land  which  is  worth 
five  dollars  an  acre  as  it  lies,  before  a  spade  has  been 
driven  into  it  or  a  bit  of  timber  cut;  and  they  are  safely 
out  of  the  way." 

Four  years  later,  in  September,  1893,  before  all  the 
disputed  claims  of  the  first  invasion  had  been  settled  in 
the  courts,  Oklahoma  was  enlarged  by  the  opening  of 
the  Cherokee  Strip,  and  still  wilder  scenes,  such  as  were 
never  witnessed  before  in  the  history  of  American  settle- 
ments, were  enacted.  The  tract  was  exceptionally  rich; 
the  fame  of  Oklahoma  land  had  spread;  multitudes  were 
attracted,  and  it  is  estimated  that  fully  200,000  men  and 
women  were  lined  up  at  the  different  points  of  entrance, 
ready  at  the  risk  of  life  and  limb  to  join  in  the  mad 
scramble  for  land.  From  the  story  of  an  eye-witness,* 
who  viewed  the  scene  near  Hennessey,  and  who  took 
part  in  the  rush  for  a  short  distance,  we  are  enabled  to 
realize  some  of  its  striking  features: 

"The  horsemen  and  those  in  light  vehicles  were  lined 

'  Superintendent  J.  H.  Parker. 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  169 

within  a  hundred-foot  strip  along  the  border  for  miles, 
and  the  heavier  teams  loaded  with  merchandise  of  all 
sorts,  lumber,  household  goods,  tents,  buildings  fitted  and 
ready  to  be  put  together,  barrels  of  water,  stacks  of 
cooked  food,  etc.,  were  arranged  in  the  rear,  to  follow 
the  owners  who  were  to  race  for  claims  and  town  lots. 
On  the  railway  were  forty  palace  stock-cars  attached  to 
three  engines.  As  this  train  moved  into  position,  it  was 
literally  filled  and  covered,  sides  and  top,  with  living 
humanity,  as  fast  as  men  and  women,  impelled  by  the 
wildest  frenzy,  could  scramble  into  place.  Every  part 
of  the  cowcatchers  and  engines  was  black  with  men 
anxious  to  be  near  the  front  to  jump  and  get  a  little 
advantage.  Eleven  minutes  before  twelve  o'clock,  a 
false  signal  was  given  and  in  less  time  than  I  can  pen  it, 
the  prairie  was  alive  with  the  myriad  racers.  The  few 
soldiers  were  utterly  powerless  to  stop  the  rush,  and  away 
in  the  distance  went  the  wild  crowd.  The  rush  and  the 
roar  of  thousands,  the  whistle  of  the  engines,  and  the 
rumbling  of  the  immense  train,  the  shouts  of  excited 
drivers,  the  noise  of  the  moving  wheels,  the  rearing  and 
tossing  and  neighing  of  excited  horses,  the  discharge  of 
firearms  in  every  direction  and  the  clouds  and  clouds  of 
dust  raised  by  tliis  moving  mass,  all  conspired  to  make 
impressions  upon  those  who  witnessed  the  grand  and 
awful  scene,  never  to  be  erased.  My  companions  and 
my  horses,  with  myself,  caught  the  excitement  and 
we  followed  for  a  mile  or  more 

"  Many  thousands  went  in  before  the  legal  hour 
through  collusion  with  the  soldiers.  Two  hundred  and 
fifty  horsemen,  ten  minutes  after  twelve  o'clock,  rode 
into  the  town  site  of  Perry,  when  the  honest  thousands 
were  miles  away,  riding  for  this  goal  of  their  ambition. 


170  Leavening  the  Nation 

The  whole  scheme  by  which  this  land  was  opened  has 
aided,  intentionally  or  not,  the  gambler,  the  adventurer, 
and  the  dishonest  speculator.  Fraud,  bribery,  and  false 
swearing  have  been  the  rule.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
dollars  have  been  expended  by  the  Government  and  by 
the  people,  worse  than  uselessly,  and  scores  of  lives  have 
been  sacrificed  in  the  rush. 

"  Thousands  of  men  and  some  women  jumped  or  rolled 
or  fell  from  the  trains,  running  at  the  rate  of  twelve  or 
fifteen  miles  an  hour,  to  secure  a  claim  or  lot.  Some 
broke  an  arm  or  leg  or  both ;  a  few  were  killed.  Many 
got  more  real  estate  upon  their  faces  and  persons  than 
they  had  to  keep  or  sell  that  night.  Others  were  re- 
warded in  getting  splendid  claims  and  valuable  lots  for 
their  efforts  and  risks.  The  Rock  Island  right  of  way  is 
fenced  through  the  Strip  with  a  five-wired  barbed  fence. 
Through  this,  most  found  a  serious  difficulty  in  making 
their  way.  I  saw  one  man  with  a  big  piece  out  of  his 
trousers.  He  said  he  hung  on  the  fence  and  vainly 
struggled  to  extricate  himself,  while  a  woman  crawled 
through  and  got  the  claim  he  was  after.  One  man  leaped 
the  fence,  stuck  his  flag  in  a  choice  piece  of  ground  and 
then  pulled  out  a  skirt  and  sunbonnet  from  under  his 
coat  and  donned  them.  Women's  rights  are  respected 
on  the  Western  plains,  he  argued  with  himself.  Two 
young  men  and  a  young  woman  raced  from  the  train  for 
the  same  claim.  She  caught  in  the  fatal  wire.  The 
rival  male  claimants  staked  at  the  same  moment.  They 
then  ran  and  extricated  the  struggling  lass,  took  her 
stake  and  drove  in  into  the  ground,  pulled  theirs  up, 
lifted  their  hats,  and  went  to  seek  other  quarter  sec- 
tions." 

There  were  home  missionaries  in  that  throng,  "follow- 


Colorado,  Oklahoma  171 

ing  the  people,"  and  staking  out  claims,  not  for  them- 
selves but  for  the  Church  and  the  Master.  Enid,  Paul 
Creek,  Perry,  Woodward,  and  Pawnee,  were  thus  oc- 
cupied on  the  first  afternoon.  In  these  places  religious 
services  were  held  by  them  the  next  day,  which  was  the 
Sabbath;  and  Monday  morning  the  work  of  gathering 
and  organizing  churches  began  with  the  bank,  the  store, 
and  the  saloon. 

In  August,  1901,  occurred  another  opening,  attended 
with  the  same  excitements,  although  on  a  smaller  scale. 
Three  new  coimties  were  organized,  and  churches  were 
among  the  first  institutions  planted  in  the  new  towns  of 
Anadarko,  Hobart,  Lawton,  and  Addington. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  this  Territory  is  only  thir- 
teen years  old.  "The  oldest  girl  born  in  Oklahoma  is 
not  out  of  short  dresses."  ^  Between  1890  and  1900,  the 
population  advanced  from  61,834  to  398,245,  a  gain  of 
500  per  cent.,  surpassing  all  other  records  for  that  decade, 
and  probably  for  any  decade  in  the  liistory  of  American 
settlement.  The  growth  of  religious  forces  has  kept  pace 
with  the  march  of  population.  Already  Oklahoma  has 
200  religious  organizations  representing  a  church  mem- 
bership of  over  6,000.  More  than  eighty  Congregational 
churches  have  been  planted,  with  their  Simday-schools 
and  Endeavor  societies,  and  their  more  than  3,000  com- 
mimicants.  Thirty  Presbyterian  churches  have  taken 
a  good  start.  Baptist,  Methodist,  and  Episcopal  mis- 
sions are  represented  by  fifty  more.  Colleges  and  acade- 
mies have  sprung  up  in  the  path  of  these  religious  move- 
ments, as  they  always  will.  Society  has  outgrown  the 
gristle  stage,  and  is  setthng  into  permanent  types.     The 

'  J.  H.  Parker,  Home  Missionary,  April,  1902,  p.  300. 


172  Leavening  the  Nation 

reign  of  the  "bummers"  who  are  always  found  on  the 
top  of  the  first  wave,  is  over  and  the  "stayers"  are  in 
control.  Oklahoma  is  ready  for  Statehood,  and  is  sure 
to  win  it;  and  leavened  throughout  as  it  is  with  the 
quickening  forces  of  education  and  religion,  it  is  destined 
to  hold  an  honorable  place  among  the  commonwealths 
of  the  East  and  West. 

Here  must  end  our  survey  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 
Thirteen  States  and  Territories,  rich  in  soils  and  mines, 
have  divided  among  themselves  that  immense  tract 
which  Napoleon  was  more  than  willing  to  sell  to  the 
United  States,  and  which  holds  to-day  more  than  one 
sixth  of  her  population.  That  these  thirteen  States  are 
one,  in  the  elements  of  loyalty,  intelligence,  and  moral 
stability,  with  the  thirteen  colonies  from  which  they 
sprang,  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  mother  care  of  the 
East.  Her  best  blood,  her  wealth,  her  traditions,  and 
institutions  have  been  lavishly  outpoured  between  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  when  in  a  few 
months  the  one  hundred  years  of  possession  shall  be 
worthily  celebrated  in  St.  Louis,  the  whole  story  will  not 
be  told  without  a  generous  and  grateful  recognition  of 
the  moral,  educational,  and  religious  forces  that  have 
sprung  from  organized  American  Home  Missions. 


XII 

THE  SOUTHERN  BELT 

It  begins  with  the  southern  boundary  of  Pennsylvania. 
Not  far  below  that  line  one  is  confronted  with  a  type  of 
civilization  so  distinct  from  that  of  New  England  and 
the  newer  West,  as  almost  to  defy  belief  that  they  belong 
to  the  same  country.  Climate  has  intensified  the  differ- 
ence, but  early  colonization  and  the  "Barbarism  of 
Slavery"  have  had  more  to  do  with  it. 

Thirteen  years  before  the  Mayflower  dropped  anchor 
in  front  of  Plymouth,  three  little  vessels  were  moored  to 
the  trees  on  James  River,  and  the  settlement  of  Virginia 
began.  It  it  conceded  they  brought  "the  germ  of 
a  Christian  church."  ^  Robert  Hunt,  the  chaplain  of 
the  expedition,  and  Richard  Buck,  who  succeeded  him, 
after  Hunt's  too  early  death,  were  men  of  God,  and  there 
is  evidence  that  the  intrepid  Captain  John  Smith  could 
both  pray  and  preach,  but  their  following  was  mixed. 
The  bulk  of  the  party  were  not  the  men  to  lay  enduring 
foundations.  The  whole  story  of  Southern  civilization 
is  vividly  epitomized  in  the  statement^  that  this  entire 
company  of  105  "was  made  up  in  the  proportion  of  four 
carpenters  to  forty-eight  gentlemen."  In  eight  months 
only  thirty-eight  of  the  105  survived,  and  these  were 
about  to  abandon  the  enterprise,  when  reinforcements 

'  L.  W.  Bacon,  "  History  of  American  Christianity,"  p.  38. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  39. 

173 


174  Leavening  the  Nation 

arrived.  But  the  newcomers  were  no  improvement, 
"fitter  to  breed  a  riot  than  to  found  a  colony/'  said 
Captain  Smith.  Again  the  experiment  was  reduced  by 
death  to  sixty,  and  again  reinforced  before  anything  like 
stability  began  to  appear. 

This  was  in  1610.  During  the  next  decade  the  history 
of  Virginia  is  a  strangely  mixed  one.  Beginning  as  a 
Puritan  colony,  its  religious  development  was  hindered 
by  the  character  of  the  material  received  from  England — 
"poor  gentlemen,  tradesmen,  serving-men,  libertines, 
and  such  like,"  and  at  one  time  a  company  of  a  hundred 
convicts,  which  drew  from  Captain  Smith  the  protest  that 
their  coming  "laid  one  of  the  fairest  countries  of  America 
under  the  scandal  of  being  a  mere  hell  upon  earth." 
The  decade,  however,  was  marked  by  things  good  and 
bad.  The  population  rose  to  4,000;  the  first  body  of 
representative  legislation  in  America  was  established; 
the  authority  of  the  Church  of  England  was  confirmed ; 
attendance  upon  church  twice  a  Sabbath  was  made  com- 
pulsory; laws  against  extravagance  in  dress  were  passed; 
tobacco  was  made  the  legal  currency,  and,  most  ominous 
portent,  the  first  Negro  slaves  were  landed  at  Jamestown. 
Sixteen  months  later  the  Pilgrims  landed  at  Plymouth, 
and  another  "continental  divide,"  social  and  moral, 
began. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  in  detail  the  settlement 
of  other  Southern  colonies.  Maryland,  we  have  already 
seen,  began  as  Roman  Catholic,  but  under  the  tolerant 
spirit  of  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  son,  aided  by  immigra- 
tion, the  rule  passed  into  Protestant  hands.  But,  both 
in  Virginia  and  in  Maryland,  the  Church  of  England  was 
recognized  as  the  official  church,  and,  just  when  New 
England  was  filling  up  with  churches,  each  of  which  was 


The  Southern  Belt  175 

a  spiritual  commonwealth,  and  a  school  of  independent 
thought  and  action,  bound  together  by  ties  of  common 
interest,  the  churches  of  the  South  made  themselves 
distant  members  of  an  English  establishment,  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  the  New  World  and  too  far 
away  to  exert  any  helpful  control. 

The  Carolinas  have  a  distinct  Protestant  origin,  dating 
back  to  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Much 
later,  the  Northern  border  became  the  home  of  Puritans 
driven  out  of  Virginia  by  persecution.  Numbers  of 
Baptists  appeared  about  1680;  two  ship-loads  also  of 
Dutch  colonists  from  New  York.  French  Huguenots, 
compelled  to  fly  by  the  recall  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
arrived  soon  after  that  event,  and  there  was  consider- 
able immigration  of  Scotch  and  Irish,  the  most  valuable 
acquisition  the  South  ever  received.  Quakers  were 
estimated  in  1710  to  contribute  one  seventh  of  the  popu- 
tion;  all  these  were  good  timber  for  a  substantial  colony, 
and  poor  material  for  conformity  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. Yet  for  years  the  trail  of  the  ecclesiastical  ser- 
pent was  over  them  all;  and,  though  its  rule  was  for  the 
most  part  only  nominal,  yet  its  petty  attempt  to  force 
ecclesiastical  law  upon  the  people,  was  a  heavy  clog  to 
religious  progress,  although  in  the  end,  it  served  to  unite 
the  Carohnas  more  than  any  other  one  cause,  in  the 
struggle  for  national  independence. 

Georgia  is  the  one  bright  spot  in  the  early  South. 
"The  foundation  of  other  American  commonwealths," 
says  Dr.  L.  W.  Bacon,  ''had  been  laid  in  faith  and  hope, 
but  the  ruling  motive  in  the  founding  of  Georgia  was 
charity,  and  that  is  the  greatest  of  these  three."  ^  Ogle- 
thorpe's Colony  was  an  open  asylum  for  the  persecuted. 
^  "History  of  American  Christianity,"  p.  122. 


176  Leavening  the  Nation 

Because  of  its  charitable  aspects  it  enjoyed  the  favor  of 
the  government,  and  has  the  distinction  of  receiving  an 
appropriation  of  10,000  pounds  from  Parliament,  the 
only  grant  of  the  kind  ever  made  to  an  American  colony. 
It  has  other  glories,  for  it  declared  absolute  freedom  in 
religion,  prohibited  by  law  the  sale  of  alcoholic  liquors, 
and  condemned  as  unchristian  the  system  of  American 
slavery.  Among  the  early  comers  were  men  whose 
services  to  religion  are  incalcuable,  and  whose  names  are 
known  around  the  world — the  two  Wesleys,  John  and 
Charles,  and  George  Whitefield.  We  shall  have  more  to 
say  of  Georgia. 

Enough  has  now  been  indicated  to  account  in  part  for 
the  Southern  type  and  its  sharp  contrast  with  that  found 
north  and  west  of  Pennsylvania;  but  when  all  other 
causes  have  been  considered,  one  stands  out  supreme — 
slavery.  No  social  structure  was  ever  yet  made  strong 
with  only  two  classes,  "gentlemen  and  slaves."  Slave- 
labor  bred  a  race  of  "gentlemen"  who  despised  work. 
Thus  the  keystone  of  the  social  arch  was  wanting — that 
great  middle  class,  intelligent,  industrious,  skilled  in 
labor,  and  self-respecting — the  real  strength  of  every 
self-governed  nation.  Not  the  "town,"  which  appeals 
to  the  common  pride  and  enterprise  of  its  dwellers,  but 
the  "plantation,"  which  is  essentially  aristocratic,  be- 
came the  unit  of  Southern  society.  It  cost  a  civil  war 
for  North  and  South  to  understand  this  difference  be- 
tween them,  and  to  learn  the  lesson  of  mutual  charity. 
In  the  very  genesis  of  Southern  history,  it  began,  and 
was  intensified  by  generations  of  slavery  until  it  resulted 
in  making  us  really  two  nations  under  one  flag.  Let  us 
thank  God  the  flag  did  not  become  two  like  the  nations, 
but  the  nations  are  becoming  one  like  the  flag! 


The  Southern  Belt  177 

It  would  be  a  grave  error  to  regard  the  Southern  Belt 
as  home-missionary  ground,  in  the  same  sense  with 
Washington,  Idaho,  and  Oklahoma.  The  religious  ele- 
ments of  the  South  are  larger  in  proportion  to  the  popu- 
lation than  in  any  other  section  of  the  Union,  outside 
of  Massachusetts,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island. 
North  Carolina  stands  nearly  abreast  of  New  York  in  the 
number  of  church  edifices  and  in  the  proportion  of  church 
membership.  Measured  by  the  same  standard,  Ala- 
bama and  Georgia  are  twice  as  religious  as  Oregon  and 
Washington.  Virginia  has  seven  times  as  many  church 
edifices  as  New  Hampshire,  in  a  population  only  four 
times  larger.  South  Carolina  has  a  greater  ratio  of 
church  communicants  than  Connecticut  or  Massachu- 
setts. It  is  safe  to  say  also  that  in  the  observance  of  the 
Sabbath,  and  in  regular  attendance  upon  religious 
services,  the  South  might  furnish  an  example  that  would 
rebuke  the  looser  practices  of  the  North  and  West. 

Home-missionary  conditions,  therefore,  so  far  as  they 
exist  at  all,  are  essentially  different  from  those  found  in 
the  Central  and  Western  States.  Yet  for  many  years 
before  the  war,  the  Northern  home  missionary,  south  of 
the  Mason  and  Dixon  line,  was  a  familiar  figure.  He 
was  a  Baptist,  a  Methodist,  a  Presbyterian,  or  a  Congre- 
gationalist,  and  behind  him  stood  the  missionary  socie- 
ties of  these  names,  supporting  his  work.  Large  church 
growths  were  the  result,  especially  of  Baptists,  Metho- 
dists, and  Presbyterians,  and  they  might  have  continued 
to  this  day  but  for  that  arch  disturber  of  peace,  that 
touchstone  of  churches  and  parties,  American  slavery. 

The  tables  of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society 
at  that  time  reveal  a  portent,  which  might  have  been 
recognized  as  a  prophecy  had  men  been  wise  enough  to 


1 78  Leavening  the  Nation 

read  its  meaning ;  we  refer  to  the  steady  dropping  out  of 
its  missionaries  from  the  Southern  States.  In  1856, 
five  years  before  tlie  first  gun  of  the  Civil  War  was  heard ^ 
the  Society  pubhcly  declared  "No  more  slaveholders  in 
home-missionary  churches,"  and  from  that  hour  began 
withdrawing  its  more  than  fifty  workers  from  the  South- 
ern field.  The  "irrepressible  conflict"  had  begun. 
Indeed,  the  South  Carolina  force  expired  much  earlier 
and  was  never  renewed.  Then  quickly  followed  Florida, 
North  Carolina,  Louisiana,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and 
Georgia.  One  by  one  these  States  were  abandoned  by 
the  home  missionary,  not  willingly,  but  under  compul- 
sion of  proslavery  sentiment,  which  neither  the  Society 
nor  its  servants  could  tolerate,  until  in  1857  one  Georgia 
missionary,  a  lone  sentinel,  was  left  to  represent  the 
Society  in  the  Southern  Belt.  From  that  point  stretches 
a  dreary  blank  until,  in  1867,  a  new  South  and  a  new 
civilization  began  to  dawn  above  the  smoke  of  war. 

Great  were  the  ecclesiastical  disruptions  growing  out 
of  the  slavery  agitation.  North  and  South  lines  were 
run  directly  through  the  Methodist,  Baptist,  and  Pres- 
byterian churches.  The  Methodist  division  came  in 
1844,  the  Baptist  in  1845.  Thenceforth  they  were  South 
and  North,  slavery  and  antislavery.  The  earlier  split 
of  the  Presbyterain  body  into  New  and  Old  School,  while 
largely  a  theological  division,  had  the  slavery  issue  be- 
hind it,  as  appears  in  the  fact  that  the  New  School  re- 
mained firm  in  their  antislavery  principles,  while  the 
Old  School  enjoyed  the  support  of  Southern  sentiment 
on  that  question.  All  these  upheavals  were  over  the 
question  whether  slavery  was  right  or  wrong,  and 
whether  slaveholders  were  entitled  to  membership  in 
the  churches.     The  answer  of  the  North  in  every  in- 


The  Southern  Belt  179 

stance  was  unequivocally  given:  "We  can  never  be  a 
party  to  any  adjustment  which  would  imply  any  appro- 
bation of  slavery." 

The  war  followed  and  its  issue  introduced  at  the  South 
a  home-missionary  problem  absolutely  new,  and  one  that 
continues  to  absorb  the  interest  of  Northern  churches  to 
an  extraordinary  degree.  Four  million  slaves  were 
suddenly  set  free,  not  only  from  physical  bondage,  but 
from  the  shackles  of  long-enforced  ignorance.  Govern- 
ment opened  its  bureaus  of  relief,  and  the  churches 
hurried  forward  their  teachers  and  preachers.  These  were 
not  weU  received  by  the  crushed,  but  still  unconquered 
white  South.  All  the  contempt  poured  out  upon  the 
Yankee  soldier  was  transferred  to  the  Yankee  teacher 
and  missionary.  Social  ostracism  was  not  the  only 
penalty  they  paid  for  their  humane  mission;  violence  to 
their  persons  and  destruction  of  their  property  were  not 
infrequent  in  the  early  years  of  their  missionary  en- 
deavors. An  ugly  spirit  of  caste  prejudice  included  the 
Negro  teacher  and  with  Negro,  and  young  women,  refined 
in  spirit,  and  dehcately  reared  in  the  best  homes  of  the 
North,  suffered  from  neglect  and  from  open  indignities. 

Among  the  notable  agencies  created  and  held  in  re- 
serve for  such  a  time  as  this,  was  the  American  Mission- 
ary Association.  It  took  form  in  1846,  absorbing  at  that 
time  several  smaller  organizations,  kindred  in  spirit.  It 
began  with  no  denominational  ties,  being,  rather,  an 
eclectic  body,  supported  by  the  growing  number  of  those 
in  all  denominations,  who  held  advanced  views  upon  the 
iniquity  of  human  slavery,  and  more  especially  upon 
the  methods  of  dealing  with  it. 

There  were  two  kinds  of  "  abohtionists  "  in  those  days. 
Both,  with  the  whole  heart,  hated  slavery  as  "the  siun 


i8o  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  all  villainies."  But  while  both  were  sincere,  one  class 
was  often  intolerant  and  vituperative,  while  the  other, 
no  less  radical  in  spirit,  preached,  prayed,  and  agitated. 
There  was  a  third  and  by  far  the  largest  class  who  con- 
stituted the  real  antislavery  army  of  those  days;  cau- 
tious and  conservative  as  they  felt  became  them  in  an 
issue  so  vital  to  the  nation.  They  were  followers  rather 
than  leaders.  It  cost  reproach,  suspicion,  and  a  degree 
of  persecution  to  be  an  antislavery  leader,  and  these 
things  they  never  endured.  Their  policy  was  rather  to 
watch  events  than  to  force  them.  At  suitable  times 
they  acted  with  great  energy,  as  witness  the  petition  to 
Congress  of  3,050  New  England  ministers  against  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  But  while  they 
were  not  leaders,  they  were  the  rank  and  file  of  the  anti- 
slavery  army,  without  which,  leaders  would  have  been 
helpless. 

The  founders  of  the  American  Missionary  Association 
were  among  the  "leaders."  They  stood  for  "abolition" 
in  the  Church,  for  the  overthrow  of  slavery  in  Christian 
ways  under  Christian  leadership,  and  meanwhile,  for  all 
possible  aid  and  comfort  to  its  unfortunate  victims. 
"Especially  did  the  founders  of  the  American  Mission- 
ary Association  see  deeper  into  the  issues  of  the  day 
than  either  the  foes  or  the  friends  who  thought  lightly 
of  their  objects  and  methods.  They  chose  for  their 
methods  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  the  work  of 
Christian  education;  and  these  were  exactly  the  forces 
which  have  been  most  pervasive  and  permanent."  '■ 
Great  credit  is  due  to  the  clearness  of  their  moral  vision, 
and  great  honor  has  come  to  them  as  the  advanced 
skirmish  line  of  the  antislavery  host. 

*  Secretary  F.  P.  Woodbury. 


The  Southern  Belt  i8i 

The  Association  began  its  work  in  1846  with  two  de- 
partments, home  and  foreign.  In  1854,  seventy-nine  of 
its  missionaries  were  located  in  foreign  lands,  including 
Africa,  Siam,  and  Sandwich  Islands,  Jamaica,  Egypt, 
and  Canada.  But  with  the  transfer  of  the  American 
Indians  to  its  sole  care,  its  foreign  work  was  turned  over 
to  other  societies.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass,  that  what 
differentiates  the  Association  chiefly  from  its  colaborers 
in  the  United  States  is  its  special  care  of  neglected  races. 
Its  beneficiaries  to-day  are  the  Negro,  and  the  Mountain 
Highlander  of  the  South,  the  Indian  of  the  plains,  the 
Chinese  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  the  West  Indian  of 

Porto  Rico. 

That  there  was  room  and  need  for  such  an  agency  is 
proved  by  its  growth  and  its  record.  Indeed,  nothing  in 
the  history  of  the  Civil  War  seems  to  have  been  more 
clearly  providential  than  the  instant  readiness  of  this 
Association,  at  its  close,  to  move  forward,  without  an 
hour's  delay,  to  the  succor  of  the  war's  chief  victims. 
It  was  a  life-boat  all  manned  and  equipped  on  the  shore, 
and  ready  to  be  launched  the  moment  the  ship  struck 
the  rocks. 

The  story  of  its  work  can  only  be  outlined  here.  Berea 
College,  Kentucky;  Hampton  Institute,  Virginia;  Fisk 
University,  Tennessee;  Atlanta  University,  Georgia; 
Tugaloo  University,  Mississippi;  Talladega  College,  Ala- 
bama; Straight  University,  Louisiana,  and  Tillotson 
CoUege,  Texas,  are  among  the  fruits  of  its  planting  in  the 
line  of  higher  institutions  of  learning.  To  these  are  to 
be  added  thirty-three  graded  Normal  schools,  and  about 
the  same  number  of  primary  and  common  schools,  for 
the  blacks;  twelve  schools  among  the  Mountain  Whites; 
five  among  the  Indians  of  the  West;  twenty-one  Chinese 


1 82  Leavening  the  Nation 

schools  on  the  Pacific  Coast;  one  school  at  Cape  Prince 
of  Wales,  Alaska,  and  two  schools  favorably  opened  in 
Porto  Rico.  In  many  of  these  110  institutions,  special 
attention  is  given  to  farming,  industrial  teaching,  and 
domestic  training.  To  its  educational  work  there  is 
added  as  an  essential  ally,  the  Church.  Among  Negroes 
the  Society  is  supplying  173  churches;  among  the  High- 
landers fifty-five,  and  twenty  in  its  Indian  department 
—in  all  248. 

The  Association  has  been  fortunate  in  its  leaders,  both 
lay  and  clerical.  Among  the  former  no  one  justifies 
more  honorable  mention  than  Lewis  Tappan.  "To  him 
more  than  any  other  man  does  the  Association  owe  its 
existence.  He  was  deeply  interested  in  the  antislavery 
missions  that  preceded  it  and  that  were  united  in  its 
formation;  and  he  was  prominent  in  the  movement 
which  rescued  the  Amistad  captives  from  the  grasp  of 
slavery,  and  which  served  so  largely  to  arouse  the  nation 
to  the  arrogance  and  potency  of  the  slave  power.  His 
pecuniary  benefactions  to  the  Association,  though  large, 
were  the  smallest  of  his  contributions  to  it.  For  years 
he  gave  his  unrequited  services  as  treasurer;  and  the 
best  efforts  of  his  hand,  head,  and  heart  were  devoted 
to  the  furtherance  of  its  objects."  * 

Among  the  executive  officers  of  the  Association,  none 
have  been  longer  or  more  honorably  connected  with  its 
affairs  than  Dr.  Michael  E.  Strieby.  For  thirty-five 
years,  between  1864  and  1899,  he  held  the  office  of  corre- 
sponding secretary,  to  which  towards  the  close  of  his  hfe 
was  attached  the  title  of  "Honorary."  He  had  reached 
his  fiftieth  year  before  this  door  to  his  greatest  hfe  work 
opened.  A  graduate  of  the  first  class  at  Oberlin,  he 
•  Twenty-seventh  Annual  Report,  p.  18. 


The  Southern  Belt  183 

represented  always,  and  cherished  to  the  last,  the  best 
traditions  of  that  famous  school.  During  his  two  suc- 
cessful pastorates  at  Mt.  Vernon,  Ohio,  and  Syracuse, 
New  York,  he  was  always  something  more  than  the  tech- 
nical pastor  and  preacher.  He  was  a  reformer  from  his 
birth;  the  champion  of  "human  rights  and  progres- 
sive theology."  ^  He  was  not  only  antislavery  and  anti- 
hquor,  but  anti-everything  that  oppressed  or  degraded 
humanity;  and  he  had  all  the  courage  of  his  principles. 
At  an  antislavery  convention  in  Syracuse,  where  he 
presided,  an  attempt  was  made  to  stop  a  certain  speaker. 
"While  I  live,"  said  the  chairman,  "this  man  shall  have 
the  right  to  speak,"  and  he  had  it.^ 

Every  antecedent  of  his  life,  therefore,  was  fitting  him 
to  be  the  executive  officer  of  a  society  pledged  to  the 
defense  of  human  rights  against  organized  usurpation, 
and  by  a  choice,  as  inevitable  as  it  was  providential,  the 
man  and  the  office  met  when  a  new  secretary  was  needed 
for  the  American  Missionary  Association.  For  thirty- 
five  years,  and  to  the  end,  he  magnified  and  honored  the 
office,  and  the  following  pen  picture,  from  one  who  knew 
him  thirty  years  and  colabored  with  him  intimately  in 
church  and  missionary  work,  could  not  be  bettered: 
"Peaceable,  benign,  wise,  progressive,  even  radical,  and 
no  less  wise  when  radical,  sound-minded,  wide-looking, 
large-planning,  he  was  the  guiding  spirit  of  our  Congre- 
gational churches  in  the  most  Christlike  work  they  have 
undertaken  for  down-trodden  but  rising  humanity. 
God  needed,  and  so  God  found,  such  a  man  for  such  a 
work."  ' 

'  President  Fairchild. 

^  J.  E.  Roy,  "  Sketch  of  the  American  Missionary  Association." 

^  W.  H.  Ward,  American  Missionary,  vol.  53,  p.  5. 


184  Leavening  the  Nation 

Among  the  first  to  enter  upon  this  new  home-mission- 
ary field,  were  the  Northern  Baptists,  Before  the  war 
closed  they  had  their  mission  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
where  slavery  was  abohshed  by  act  of  Congress  in 
1862.  Two  years  later  several  missionaries  and  four- 
teen assistants  were  under  commission  in  five  different 
States;  Virginia,  North  Carohna,  South  Carolina,  Ten- 
nessee, Louisiana,  and  in  the  District  of  Columbia.  For 
a  time  the  Baptist  work  was  embarrassed  by  a  multi- 
plicity of  organizations  and  by  consequent  friction  be- 
tween them.  But  with  the  harmonizing  of  these  inter- 
ests and  the  delegation  of  all  colored  missions  to  the 
American  Home  Mission  Society,  a  new  impulse  was 
given  to  the  work.  In  1867  fifty  ordained  ministers, 
one  sixth  of  the  whole  number  employed  by  the  Society, 
were  in  commission  to  labor  exclusively  among  the 
blacks.  Thirty  of  them  were  colored  preachers.  Two 
years  later  nearly  4,000  children  were  being  instructed 
in  the  Society's  schools.  But  its  main  work  has  been 
the  support  of  higher  institutions  and  the  education  of 
colored  preachers. 

Shaw  University,  Richmond  Institute,  Wayland  Semi- 
nary, Leland  University,  Nashville  Institute,  Bishop 
College,  are  but  a  part  of  the  Society's  educational  equip- 
ment, either  under  its  full  direction  or  controlled  by  a 
majority  representation  on  their  boards  of  trustees. 
These  schools  are  open  to  both  sexes,  and  to  all  colors. 
Pastors'  wives.  Christian  mothers,  and  teachers  in  great 
number  have  gone  out  from  them  to  be  a  blessing  to 
their  race.  But  the  development  of  trained  preachers 
at  home,  and  of  missionaries  for  Africa,  has  been  kept 
uppermost  in  the  purpose  of  their  founders. 

The  results  are  abundant  and  extremely  gratifying. 


The  Southern  Belt  185 

At  the  opening  of  the  war,  colored  Baptists  at  the  South 
numbered  something  less  than  400,000.  In  1862  the 
man  who  could  read  was  a  curiosity.  Twenty  years 
later  the  colored  Baptists  of  the  South  were  issuing  eight 
rehgious  papers.*  Under  patient,  devoted,  and  con- 
tinuous missionary  labors,  colored  Baptists  have  come 
to  number  in  the  sixteen  Southern  States,  not  far  from 
1,500,000. 

Previous  to  1866,  Methodists  had  cooperated  with 
various  societies  for  the  instruction  of  freedmen ;  but  in 
that  year,  their  own  Freedmen's  Aid  Society  was  estab- 
Hshed,  and  received  during  the  next  twelve  months  con- 
tributions to  the  extent  of  nearly  $40,000.  At  the  end 
of  thirty-five  years  it  had  invested  $4,000,000  in  its 
Southern  educational  work.  It  has  twenty-two  schools 
among  the  blacks,  of  which  ten  have  a  collegiate  grade, 
one  is  a  theological  seminary,  and  eleven  are  academies. 
The  colleges  enroll  from  three  to  four  thousand  students, 
the  academies,  more  than  1,500,  and  there  are  about 
100  students  preparing  for  the  ministry.  They  have 
also  schools  and  academies  for  the  needy  whites,  and 
both  classes  together  number  over  8,000  students,  of 
whom  220  are  preparing  for  the  ministry  and  223  are 
studying  medicine,  while  in  manual  training  and  trade 
schools  are  to  be  found  more  than  1,500  colored  students. 

Enough  has  been  said  to  indicate  the  supreme  interest 
of  the  Northern  churches  in  the  rehgious  and  educational 
enlightenment  of  the  Southern  blacks  thus  thrown  upon  ^ 
their  care  by  the  issue  of  the  war.  There  was  never 
before  a  demand  so  sudden,  so  vast  and  overwhelming. 
Well  it  was  that   the  home-missionary  army  in  all  its 

•  H.  L.  Morehouse,  "Historical  Sketch,  Baptist  Home  Mission 
Society." 


1 86  Leavening  the  Nation 

divisions  stood  organized  and  equipped  to  meet  it;  that 
churches  were  prompt  to  support  the  missionary  forces 
thus  put  in  motion,  and  that  consecrated  men  and 
women  were  not  wanting  to  throw  themselves  into  the 
work.  It  appalls  one  to  think  what  might  have  resulted 
had  that  crisis  found  us  less  ready, — if  years  of  negro 
misrule  and  license,  unchecked  by  immediate  education 
and  rehgious  restraint,  had  followed  the  war.  To  or- 
ganized Home  Missions,  more  than  to  any  other  one 
agency,  the  country  owes  its  escape  from  that  serious 
disaster. 

But  freedmen's  missions  were  not  the  only  outcome  of 
peace  in  the  Southern  Belt.  A  new  South  had  opened. 
Inmiigration  began;  skilled  labor  was  in  demand;  land 
was  cheap;  manufactures,  almost  unknown  before,  were 
started  with  Northern  capital ;  railroads  were  built,  and 
upon  this  wave  of  progress,  the  orderly  movement  of 
Home  Missions,  interrupted  by  agitation  and  war,  was 
resumed.  Florida  filled  up  so  rapidly  from  the  North 
and  West,  as  almost  to  lose  its  character  as  a  Southern 
State,  and  with  this  migration  came  the  Northern  spirit, 
the  Western  enterprise,  and  the  needs,  educational  and 
religious,  of  both. 

In  1876,  the  Congregational  Church  in  Jacksonville 
was  born.  New  Smyrna  preceded  it  twelve  months,  and 
Daytona  followed  it  by  the  same  interval.  In  ten  years 
churches  of  this  order  multiplied  from  three  to  over  fifty. 
From  being  the  smallest  State,  Congregationally,  it  has 
advanced,  in  spite  of  fires  and  frosts,  to  be  the  twenty- 
second  on  the  roll,  passing  Oregon  and  Indiana,  and 
ranking  close  to  Colorado  in  the  number  of  its  churches. 
With  scarce  an  exception,  they  are  of  home-missionary 
planting.     So  also  is  Rolhns  College  at  Winter  Park,  and 


Michael  E.  Strieby.  D.D.,  LL.D. 
Secretary  of  the  American  Missionary  Association  from   1864  to 

1895. 


The  Southern  Belt  187 

the  vigorous  Chautauqua  Assembly.  At  Tampa  the 
home-missionary  women  of  the  State,  long  before  the 
Spanish  War,  opened  a  mission  in  a  colony  of  4,000 
Cubans,  which  grew  into  a  church,  and  this  church,  after 
the  deliverance  of  Cuba,  became  the  nucleus  of  a  flour- 
ishing church  in  the  city  of  Havana.  Says  Superin- 
tendent S.  F.  Gale:  "In  1883  the  Florida  inventory 
showed  three  missionary  pastors  and  five  churches, 
strictly  the  result  of  the  Society's  initiative  and  aid. 
Meantime,  to  1900,  every  ten  weeks  a  church  has  been 
planted.  In  the  seventeen  years,  the  five  have  increased 
more  than  seventeen-fold.  The  ministerial  list  carried 
into  the  new  century  fifty-two  names.  Half  as  many 
men  have  been  ordained.  Florida  home  missions  is  or- 
ganized and  w^orking  up  to  date  and  standard.  Em- 
phatically its  life  and  means  of  growth  are  the  gift  of  the 
Society  upon  which  it  must  still  depend." 

Texas  and  Western  Louisiana  are  Southern  scarcely 
more  than  in  name,  so  rapidly  have  other  elements  come 
in  since  the  close  of  the  war.  The  rapidity  of  those 
movements  is  almost  beyond  belief.  Twenty  years  ago 
Texas  was  the  eleventh  State  of  the  Union  in  the  rank  of 
its  population.  To-day  it  is  the  fourth.  "This  inflow 
of  life  is  not  from  abroad  but  from  the  older  States,"  ^ 
and  chiefly  from  the  North  and  West.  Missionary 
movements  have  followed  on  but  have  never  overtaken 
the  demand.  The  "open  doors"  are  still  more  numer- 
ous than  the  closed. 

But  perhaps  the  most  astonishing  developments  of  a 

^  Sec.  W.  Choate,  "  Open  Doors,"  published  by  the  Congrega- 
tional Home  Missionary  Society,  especially  illustrating  condi- 
tions in  Texas.  See  also  Diamond  Jubilee  Report  by  Luther 
Rees,  pp.  67,  68. 


l88  Leavening  the  Nation 

missionary  character  have  been  seen  in  Georgia  and 
Alabama.  The  story  of  Congregationahsm  in  Georgia 
has  more  than  one  romantic  chapter.  Seventy-five 
years  after  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  a  colony  of  New 
England  Puritans  emigrated  from  Dorchester,  Mass.,  to 
South  Carolina,  and  planted  in  that  State  the  "  Dor- 
chester Church,"  so  called,  about  twenty  miles  from 
Charleston.  There  it  lived  and  prospered  for  fifty 
years,  until,  in  1752,  the  majority  of  the  church  made 
a  second  migration  to  Georgia,  the  minority  remaining 
in  South  Carolina,  and  maintaining  their  life  as  a 
church  until  1861.  The  Georgia  contingent  planted 
anew  at  Midway  in  that  State,  and  entered  upon  a  career 
which,  probably,  no  other  church  of  any  name  can 
parallel. 

Through  all  the  years  of  slavery,  it  was  a  church  with- 
out a  color  line,  800  of  its  members  at  one  time 
being  slaves.  It  has  sent  out  more  than  100  ministers 
of  the  gospel.  Its  standard  of  purity  and  its  dis- 
cipline were  severely  maintained  in  times  that  tried 
men's  souls,  and  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  when 
Georgia  refused  to  send  a  delegate  to  the  Continental 
Congress,  this  church  sent  its  own  delegate  to  that  body; 
and  it  was  the  Massachusetts  blood  of  this  old  Dor- 
chester-Midway Church  that  powerfully  influenced  the 
State  of  Georgia  to  enter  the  Union.  "It  gave  to  the 
nation  two  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence ;  the  first  Minister  Extraordinary  and  Plenipo- 
tentiary that  ever  entered  the  Imperial  court  of  China 
from  any  nation;  six  congressmen,  and  among  other 
blessings,  the  mother  of  a  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States.  It  gave  to  the  State  its  first  institution  of 
higher  learning,  four  of  its  governors,  several  judges  in 


The  Southern  Belt  189 

its  courts,  State  officials  of  many  kinds,  mayors  of  cities, 
educators  in  large  numbers,  including  several  college 
presidents.  It  gave  its  own  name  to  one  of  the  coimties 
of  the  State,  and  the  names  of  its  members  to  five  other 
comities.  It  gave  to  the  Church  six  foreign  mission- 
aries, bishops,  and  other  officials.  It  gave  to  the  world 
the  first  inventor  of  that  blessing  to  womankind,  the 
sewing-machine."  ^  Its  influence  was  boundless,  and  is 
still  felt  in  Georgia  and  in  the  nation. 

It  is  sometimes  questioned  whether  the  soil  of  the 
South  is  congenial  to  Puritan  Congregationalism.  There 
is  little  the  matter  with  a  soil  that  could  give  this  Con- 
gregational tree  such  teeming  hfe  and  fruitage.  So 
thought  Rev.  J.  H.  Parker  and  Dr.  J.  E.  Roy  when, 
in  1882,  they  gathered  the  Piedmont,  now  the  Central 
church,  in  the  city  of  Atlanta.  Here,  after  Mr.  Parker's 
retirement,  that  stalwart  preacher.  Dr.  Zachary  Eddy, 
felt  honored  to  bear  the  Society's  commission,  and  here 
he  did  some  of  the  best  work  of  his  long  and  useful  hfe. 
Three  other  chiurches  of  the  same  order  quickly  sprang 
up  within  the  city  Umits,  and  there  for  a  time,  the  bounds 
of  the  Georgia  work  seemed  to  be  reached;  but  it  was 
not  to  be. 

There  are  streams  that  disappear  in  the  earth,  and 
after  long  courses  under  ground,  suddenly  burst  again  to 
the  surface.  The  Old  Midway  Church  was  buried  but 
active.  Her  memory,  and  the  presence  of  three  new 
churches  of  the  same  spirit,  led  to  a  discovery — a  mutual 
discovery  it  might  be  called — on  the  part  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Society,  that  scattered  over  the  State  of 
Georgia  was  a  large  body  of  Christian  believers  known 

» F.  E.  Jenkins. 


190  Leavening  the  Nation 

as  Congregational  Methodists  and  Free  Methodists, 
evangehcal  in  faith  and  Congregational  in  government; 
and  the  discovery,  on  their  part,  that  without  knowing 
it,  they  belonged,  in  spirit  and  practice,  to  a  family  of 
5,000  such  churches  scattered  throughout  the  United 
States. 

The  mutual  discovery  was  a  mutual  surprise  and  de- 
light. Immediately  the  law  of  elective  affinity  began  to 
work.  In  natiu-al  ways,  and  without  the  slightest  ex- 
ternal pressure,  the  two  bodies  drew  together,  until,  in 
1869,  forty  of  these  churches  in  Georgia  and  Alabama 
joined  with  the  four  chm-ches  of  Atlanta,  in  organizing 
the  United  Conference  of  Georgia,  which  has  since  been 
recognized  by  the  National  Council  and  stands  in  full 
and  perfect  fellowship  with  the  Congregational  churches 
of  the  United  States. 

These  discoveries  were  not  confined  to  Georgia  and 
Alabama.  In  North  Carolina,  Western  Florida,  Texas, 
and  Louisiana,  the  story  was  repeated,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  of  churches  not  only  made  in  the  Congregational 
image,  but  yearning  with  the  spirit  of  kinship  for  recogni- 
tion and  adoption.  Not  less  than  120  such  churches  in 
the  Southern  Belt  have  thus  been  drawn  into  fellowship, 
and  many  of  them  have  enjoyed  the  substantial  aid  of 
the  Home  Missionary  Society. 

It  has  been  the  writer's  happiness,  more  than  once, 
to  spend  days  of  sacred  privilege  among  these  humble 
churches,  meeting  them  in  their  plain,  unpainted  sanc- 
tuaries, and  breaking  bread  together  vmder  the  branches 
of  the  oaks  where  so  many  of  them  stand.  To  a  North- 
ern Congregationalist  everything  about  the  scene  was 
strange;  faces,  names,  and  forms  of  speech  were  un- 
familiar.   But  there  was  no  mistaking  the  spiritual  kin- 


The  Southern  Belt  191 

ship  and  the  genuine  fraternity.  Never,  East  or  West, 
have  I  seen  more  real  devotion  or  more  enthusiastic 
and  intelligent  sympathy  with  the  Pilgrim  faith  and 
polity.  Whatever  else  may  be  lacking  in  these  coimtry 
churches  of  the  South,  their  loyalty  to  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  and  their  attachment  to  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  Congregationalism,  cannot  be  doubted. 

Their  ministers  are  not  often  fairly  educated,  and  in 
the  poverty  of  the  people,  are  compelled  to  supplement 
their  salaries  by  manual  labor.  But  they  have  a  certain 
rough  eloquence  and  a  good  knowledge  of  the  contents 
of  the  Bible,  though  little  familiar  with  systematic 
theology.  But  a  hopeful  sign,  everywhere  visible,  is  a 
demand  on  the  part  of  the  people  for  a  higher  class  of 
preaching.  The  chiu-ches  are  in  advance  of  the  preach- 
ers in  this  demand,  and  there  is  large  promise  in  that 
fact.^ 

From  the  forgeoing  review,  imperfect  as  it  must  be,  the 
conclusion  is  irresistible — there  is  a  "  New  South."  For 
years  that  phrase  was  a  legend  slow  to  materialize.  But 
time  is  rapidly  finishing  what  the  war  only  began.  A 
"New  South"  there  is  to-da3^  A  generation  has  passed 
away.  The  old  bourbon,  and  many  things  for  which  he 
stood  are  dead.  The  adult  South  of  the  present  knew 
not  the  war  and  to  them  it  is  a  tradition  almost  without 
meaning.  Meanwhile,  a  generation  of  intelligent,  enter- 
prising, skilled,  and  progressive  Southerners  have  come 
upon  the  stage.  Northern  blood  and  enterprise  have 
been  imported,  and  have  struck  root  in  the  soil;  so  that 
it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  New  South  is  domi- 
nated, socially,  politically,  and  commercially,  by  a  race 

'  See  a  valuable  article  by  A.  T.  Clark  in  Home  Missionary, 
March,  1902,  p.  264. 


192  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  men  and  women  of  middle  age,  that  is  in  close  touch, 
if  not  identical,  with  the  best  hfe  and  traditions  of  the 
North.^ 

Secession,  root  and  branch,  is  dead;  "Confederate 
States"  are  embalmed  in  history;  veterans  of  the  old 
war  scatter  flowers  indiscriminately  on  the  graves  of 
both  armies;  a  new  war  has  knit  North  and  South  to- 
gether in  a  common  defense;  a  chief  magistrate,  repre- 
senting the  highest  religious  and  political  ideals  of  the 
North,  is  enthusiastically  welcomed  in  what  was  the 
burning  center  of  rebellion  forty  years  ago;  the  Negro 
left  on  our  hands  as  a  threatening  problem,  is  solving 
his  own  future  through  education  and  religion;  the  old 
hne  of  division  and  distinction  is  obliterated,  and  the 
whole  South  is  as  open  as  North,  East  or  West,  to  every 
ministry  of  civilization,  and  to  every  evangel  of  religion. 

'  For  strong  confirmation  of  this  view  see  article  by  Super- 
intendent F.  E.  Jenkins,  Home  Missionary,  September,  1902, 
p.  203. 


XIII 

THE    PACIFIC   NORTHWEST— OREGON   AND 
WASHINGTON 

Oregon,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  was  admitted  to  the 
Union  in  1859,  the  twentieth  State  to  be  recognized 
under  the  Constitution.  But  the  Oregon  of  history  in- 
cluded much  more  than  the  present  State  of  that  name. 
It  embraced  Washington,  Idaho,  parts  of  Montana  and 
Wyoming,  and  British  Columbia  as  far  north  as  54°  10'. 
The  struggle  for  its  possession  covered  more  than  200 
years,  enlisting  five  great  nations,  Spain,  France,  Russia, 
Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States.  Spain,  France, 
and  Russia,  one  b}''  one,  dropped  out  of  the  contest,  and 
between  1818  and  1846,  the  territory  was  occupied 
jointly  by  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  In  that 
year,  by  treaty  with  England,  our  government  aban- 
doned all  claims  north  of  the  49th  parallel,  and  Eng- 
land yielded  all  rights  south  of  that  line.  Thus  the 
"Northwestern  boimdary  question"  was  settled  and  the 
purely  American  development  of  Oregon  began.  This 
important  event  which  filled  out  the  northwestern  cor- 
ner of  the  national  map,  and  is  here  dismissed  with  a 
sentence,  required  "fifty-four  years,  two  months  and 
six  days"  ^  to  accomplish. 

One  chapter  in  the  early  annals  of  Oregon  is  celebrated 

*  W.  Barrows,  "  Oregon,"  p.  282. 

193 


194  Leavening  the  Nation 

in  story  and  song,  and  calls  for  no  extended  rehearsal 
here,  although  it  cannot  be  passed  by  with  a  mere  allu- 
sion. 

We  need  not  enter  into  the  controversy  of  the  histo- 
rians as  to  the  part  actually  taken  by  Dr.  Marcus  Whit- 
man in  saving  Oregon  to  the  United  States.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  some  claims  have  been  set  up  for  him  by 
admiring  friends  which  he  never  made  for  himself,  and 
it  is  more  than  probable,  that  in  seeking  to  modify  the 
extravagance  of  such  claims,  some  writers  have  unjustly 
minimized  his  real  services.  Truth  lies  somewhere  be- 
tween the  two,  and  time,  which  settles  most  questions, 
may  be  trusted  to  determine  the  merits  of  this  one. 
But  concerning  his  character  as  a  Christian  hero  and 
patriot  there  can  be  no  two  opinions.  Marcus  Whitman 
is  no  myth.  His  marvelous  ride  is  historic ;  his  purpose 
in  making  it  cannot  be  disputed,  and  even  had  it  utterly 
failed,  the  spirit  that  prompted  the  endeavor,  and  the 
bravery  and  endurance  that  achieved  it,  deserve  the 
admiring  gratitude  of  every  right-minded  American. 

In  the  month  of  March,  1836,  there  was  a  quiet  wedding 
at  the  home  of  Judge  Stephen  Prentiss,  in  Plattsburg, 
N.  Y.,  and  his  accomphshed  daughter,  Narcissa,  became 
the  wife  of  Marcus  Whitman,  M.D.  With  Rev.  H.  H. 
Spalding,  Dr.  Whitman  was  under  commission  of  the 
American  Board  as  missionary  to  the  Nez  Perces  In- 
dians in  the  Territory  of  Oregon,  then  the  joint  posses- 
sion of  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  One  month 
later  these  two  men  with  their  young  brides,  Mr.  Wilham 
H.  Gray,  two  Indian  boys  and  two  teamsters  started  on 
their  long  journey.  The  Secretary  of  War  at  Wash- 
ington issued  passports  to  them  as  if  going  to  a  foreign 
country,  commending  them  "to  the  friendly  attention  of 


Oregon  and  Washington  195 

civil  and  military  authorities,  and  if  necessary,  to  their 
protection." 

By  wagon  and  saddle  they  reached  the  Ohio  River, 
sailed  down  the  Ohio  to  the  Mississippi,  up  that  river  to 
the  Missouri  and  on  to  Council  Bluffs,  where  they  landed 
with  their  outfit  to  penetrate  the  wilderness  beyond. 
On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1836,  three  months  from  home, 
they  reached  the  South  Pass  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
the  Continental  Divide.  Here,  facing  the  magnificent 
panorama  spread  out  before  them,  they  laid  their  blan- 
kets on  the  ground  and  unfolding  the  stars  and  stripes, 
opened  their  Bibles,  and  kneeUng  in  prayer,  took  posses- 
sion of  the  sunset  half  of  the  continent  "in  the  name  of 
God  and  the  United  States." 

The  Hudson  Bay  Company  at  this  time  held  the  prac- 
tical monopoly  of  Oregon,  and  were  interested  for  selfish 
reasons  in  preventing  emigration  from  the  East.  For 
years  they  had  circulated  false  reports  which  reached 
the  United  States  by  way  of  the  English  press,  repre- 
senting the  entire  Northwest  as  a  wild  and  inhospitable 
region,  fit  only  for  Indians  and  wild  beasts.  They 
opposed  the  coming  of  the  Whitman  party,  and  said 
there  were  no  roads,  that  their  canvas-covered  four- 
wheeled  wagon  could  never  be  got  over  the  mountains, 
and  that  no  women  could  possibly  live  through  the  perils 
of  the  journey.  Seven  times  that  wagon  was  barely 
rescued  from  rolling  down  the  canyon.  Dr.  Whitman 
took  off  two  wheels  and  put  them  in  the  wagon,  and 
with  the  two  remaining  wheels  pushed  on.  Fording 
rivers  was  a  frequent  experience.  At  one  place,  a  dried 
elk  skin  was  the  novel  ferry-boat.  The  passenger  lay 
flat  on  the  skin,  and  Indian  women,  swimming,  held  the 
ropes  in  their  teeth  and  pulled  the  party  across,  one  by  one. 


1 96  Leavening  the  Nation 

The  journey  of  six  months  and  3,500  miles  ended  at 
last  at  Fort  Walla  Walla  (Beautiful  Valley),  where  they 
were  kindly  welcomed  by  the  Indians.  Some  twenty- 
five  miles  from  the  Fort,  Dr.  Whitman  and  Mr.  Spalding 
built  houses  of  logs,  with  rough  doors  and  windows. 
The  bedsteads  were  of  board  frames  nailed  to  the  side  of 
the  house,  and  covered  with  husks  and  blankets.  In 
three  years  they  had  a  school  of  fifty  Indian  children, 
and  had  taught  many  of  the  natives  how  to  farm  their 
land.  On  the  200  acres  cleared,  they  had  planted  the 
seed  brought  from  the  East,  and  raised  wheat,  corn, 
and  a  large  variety  of  vegetables.  Three  buildings  and 
a  small  grist-mill  had  been  erected.  The  Indian  lan- 
guage was  reduced  to  writing,  and  the  first  book  in  the 
Nez  Perces  tongue  was  printed  on  a  press  sent  from 
the  East  by  way  of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  around 
the  Horn.  The  first  home  letters  reached  these  young 
brides  at  the  end  of  two  and  a  half  years.  The  Indians 
proved  friendly,  and  Dr.  Whitman's  services  as  a  phy- 
sician were  appreciated  by  the  white  people  of  the  region. 

In  the  early  fall  of  1842,  while  visiting  a  patient  at 
Fort  Walla  Walla,  he  was  invited  to  dine  with  the  traders. 
During  the  meal,  a  herald  came  in  with  the  exciting  news 
that  a  large  party  of  emigrants  from  Red  River  were  on 
their  way  down  the  Columbia  to  take  possession  of 
Oregon.  The  interest  was  intense,  for  the  future  of 
Oregon  lay  with  the  nationality  that  should  settle  it. 
A  young  Jesuit  priest  sprang  to  his  feet  and  triumphantly 
proposed  a  toast:  "Hurrah  for  Oregon!  She  is  ours 
now.     America  is  too  late;  we  have  got  the  country." 

This  incident  is  introduced  not,  as  some  have  used  it, 
to  explain  the  determining  motive  of  Dr.  Whitman's 
winter  journey  across  the  continent,  for  at  the  time  it 


Oregon  and  Washington  197 

occurred  that  journey  was  already  planned.  The  in- 
cident illustrates  the  state  of  public  feeling  on  the 
Pacific  coast  with  respect  to  the  possession  of  Oregon, 
and  may  have  had  its  influence  upon  Dr.  Whitman's 
course.  Another,  and  perhaps  the  leading,  motive  of  his 
journey  was  a  missionary  one.  Incited  by  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company  and  certain  Jesuit  priests,  who  were  their 
agents,  some  of  the  Indians  had  become  hostile;  a  lack 
of  harmony  also  had  arisen  between  the  missionaries 
themselves  as  to  the  management  of  the  mission.  For 
these  reasons  the  American  Board  had  ordered  the  dis- 
continuance of  the  station  at  this  point.  It  was  the 
hope  of  Dr.  Whitman  by  a  personal  visit  to  Boston,  to 
secure  the  rescinding  of  this  order,  and  his  resolution  was 
taken,  even  without  the  sanction  of  the  Board,  and  at 
the  risk  of  their  displeasure,  to  make  the  journey. 

To  the  strenuous  objections  of  his  fellow  missionaries 
he  replied:  "I  was  a  man  before  I  was  a  missionary,  and 
when  I  became  a  missionary  I  did  not  expatriate  myself. 
I  shall  go  if  I  have  to  sever  my  connection  with  the 
Board."  But  that  another  motive  lay  warm  in  his  heart, 
and  was  possibly  even  paramount  to  his  missionary  zeal, 
is  made  evident  by  his  parting  words  as  he  mounted  his 
pony  for  the  East:  "My  life  is  of  little  worth,"  said  he, 
"if  I  can  save  this  country  to  the  American  people." 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  October  3,  1842,  that  he  set 
forth,  with  Amos  Lawrence  Love  joy  for  his  companion 
and  an  Indian  for  guide.  In  eleven  days  they  made  640 
miles  to  Fort  Hall,  Idaho,  where  the  British  captain  in 
command  tried  to  stop  him,  telling  of  heavy  snows,  and 
Indians  on  the  war-path.  Here  Whitman  turned  1,000 
miles  out  of  his  direct  course  towards  Santa  Fe  by  an 
unknown  road.    The  guide  deserted.    Whitman  and 


1 98  Leavening  the  Nation 

Love  joy  pushed  on.  In  the  face  of  Winding  snows,  and 
through  icy  rivers  out  of  which  horse  and  rider  came 
cased  in  a  mail  of  ice,  they  reached  Bent's  Fort  on  the 
upper  Arkansas,  January  3,  1843.  Whitman's  hands, 
feet,  and  face  were  frost-bitten.  Here  Lovejoy  gave  out, 
but  not  Whitman.  He  had  printed  matter  circulated, 
telling  of  the  wealth  and  fertility  of  Oregon,  and  to  all 
emigrants  on  the  trail  he  gave  glowing  accounts  of  the 
Northwest  country.  At  St.  Louis  he  exchanged  the 
saddle  for  the  stage,  and  after  two  months  hard  riding 
reached  Washington,  March  3,  1843. 

Before  Whitman  left  Oregon  to  cross  the  continent, 
the  Ashburton  treaty  was  under  discussion  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  was  approaching  a  decisive  vote. 
Whitman's  anxiety  had  been  to  reach  Washington  be- 
fore that  vote,  which  he  then  beUeved  was  to  settle  the 
possession  of  Oregon.  Upon  reaching  St.  Louis,  he 
learned  that  the  treaty  had  been  signed,  but,  to  his  sur- 
prise and  joy,  that  it  did  not  include  the  Oregon  ques- 
tion ;  that  was  still  an  open  issue,  and  his  mission  might 
not  be  too  late.  With  this  hope  he  appeared  in  Wash- 
ington in  March,  1843. 

Concerning  his  interviews  with  President  Tyler  and 
Daniel  Webster,  and  what  influence  his  representations 
may  have  had,  there  has  been  much  discussion,  growing 
chiefly  out  of  an  abundant  lack  of  direct  testimony. 
Dr.  Whitman  himself  does  not  appear  to  have  been  very 
communicative  on  the  subject.  There  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  he  held  more  than  one  interview  with  the 
Washington  authorities;  that  he  pressed  his  well-known 
views  of  Northwestern  resources  and  possibilities;  and 
as  little  reason  to  question  that  the  testimony  of  such  a 
man,  enhanced  in  value  by  the  heroic  effort  he  had  made 


Oregon  and  Washington  199 

to  deliver  it  in  person,  was  of  influence  upon  the  Govern- 
ment. 

One  of  the  severest  critics  of  the  Whitman  episode 
declares  to  the  contrary:  "That  he  influenced  American 
diplomacy  in  any  way  is  not  only  destitute  of  evidence 
but  intrinsically  improbable."  Another  critic,  who  is  on 
record  as  saying  that  "the  arrival  of  Whitman  in  Wash- 
ington was  opportmie,"  declares  at  a  later  period  that 
"there  is  no  evidence  that  Dr.  Whitman  reached  Wash- 
ington City  during  the  spring  of  1843."  His  arrival 
was  "opportune,"  but  he  never  arrived.  So  much  for 
the  uncertainties  of  history.^ 

That  President  Tyler  was  favorable  to  Whitman's 
view  of  the  value  of  Oregon  is  attested  by  his  subsequent 
public  utterances;  but  that  he  said  distinctly  to  the  in- 
trepid missionary,  "If  you  can  show  that  the  mountains 
can  be  crossed  by  wagons  I  will  see  that  the  land  is  not 
given  to  Great  Britain,"  is  left  in  considerable  doubt. 

Nevertheless,  it  was  clearly  a  part  of  Whitman's  plan, 
and  always  in  his  mind,  to  stimulate  emigration  towards 
the  Northwest;  and  after  his  official  visit  to  the  mis- 
sionary rooms  at  Boston  that  matter  occupied  his  whole 
attention.  Whether  he  alone  gathered  the  nearly  1,000 
emigrants,  with  their  wagons,  flocks,  and  herds,  and 
personally  led  them  from  the  lower  Mississippi  to  the 
Columbia,  is  scarcely  worth  the  heat  of  a  discussion, 
since  it  is  certain  he  promoted  the  movement  by  word 
of  mouth,  by  printed  circulars,  and  in  every  other  way 
possible;  he  accompanied  the  party,  serving  them  with 

*  The  best  and  probably  the  final  word  on  the  Whitman  con- 
troversy is -found  in  Dr.  W.  A.  Mowry's  "  Marcus  WTiitman" 
and  Dr.  Myron  Eells'  "  A  Reply."  Both  are  conservative  and 
accurate. 


200  Leavening  the  Nation 

valuable  information  and  inspiring  their  courage,  and  in 
the  latter  stages  of  the  journey  he  was  their  personal 
leader  and  guide. 

Almost  a  year  after  parting  from  his  wife,  she  looked 
out  one  day  from  her  cabin  door  and  saw  the  great  caval- 
cade winding  down  the  mountain.  It  was  the  first  news 
of  her  husband  she  had  received,  and  day  by  day  her 
heart  had  grown  heavier  with  the  question,  "Does  he 
live?"  By  this  timely  arrival  the  Americans  outnum- 
bered the  English.  Oregon  was  in  a  fair  way  to  be  saved. 
A  few  months  passed ;  the  Oregon  treaty  was  signed  and 
became  law;  three  new  stars  were  assured  to  the  coun- 
try's flag,  and  the  name  of  Whitman  was  added  to  the 
roll  of  American  heroes. 

Alas  that  so  soon  the  hero  and  his  no  less  heroic  wife 
were  to  wear  the  martyr's  crown!  Three  years  after  his 
return  from  the  East,  Dr.  "Whitman,  his  wife,  and  twelve 
of  his  associates,  were  brutally  murdered  by  the  Indians 
whom  they  were  seeking  to  serve.  The  causes  and  mo- 
tives of  the  massacre  are  exceedingly  mixed,  but  the 
calmest  judgment  of  wise  and  cautious  men  has  long 
been  agreed  that  the  hostility  of  the  agents  of  the  Hud- 
son Bay  Trading  Company  towards  American  missiona- 
ries and  immigrants  was  one  efficient  cause  of  that  tragic 
event. 

One  month  and  five  days  before  the  murder  of  Whit- 
man, George  H.  Atkinson  and  Mrs.  Atkinson  sailed  from 
Boston  by  the  bark  Samoset  for  Oregon,  imder  commis- 
sion of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society.  They 
arrived  at  Honolulu  Feb.  26,  1848,  where  they  remained 
three  weeks  waiting  for  a  vessel  for  Oregon.  Thus  it 
was  nine  months  from  leaving  Boston,  after  a  voyage  of 
18,000  miles,  that  they  arrived  at  their  field  of  labor. 


Oregon  and  Washington  201 

News  of  the  Whitman  massacre  reached  them  at  Hono- 
lulu, and  they  were  urged  by  friends  there  to  abandon 
home  missions  as  a  dangerous  venture,  and  to  give 
themselves  to  foreign  work.  Forty  years  later,  in 
commenting  upon  this  kindly  meant  advice,  Atkinson 
remarked,  "To  save  our  own  country  is  of  more  worth 
to  humanity  and  to  God's  kingdom  than  to  toil  for  an 
effete  and  dying  race." 

The  population  of  Oregon  at  this  time  was  about  7,000, 
gathered  chiefly  in  the  Willamette  Valley,  at  Vancouver, 
and  on  the  Cowlitz  River.  ^  Excitement  over  the  Whit- 
man massacre  and  the  execution  of  his  murderers,  and 
the  transition  from  a  provisional  to  a  Territorial  govern- 
ment, were  unfavorable  to  the  development  of  missionary 
work.  The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  which  soon 
followed,  still  further  demoralized  society.  The  young 
blood,  needed  just  then  at  home  for  foundation  laying, 
was  drained  off  to  the  gold  mines  of  the  South ;  the  cost 
of  living,  from  the  same  cause,  was  a  further  embarrass- 
ment. Much  money  was  needed  for  the  building  of 
churches,  schools,  and  academies,  but  there  was  little  to 
spare  for  these  purposes,  with  "board  at  fourteen  dollars 
a  week,  eggs  at  two  dollars  a  dozen,  and  plain  cups  and 
saucers  at  twelve  dollars  a  dozen." 

The  population  also  was  far  from  homogeneous.  The 
Eastern  contingent  was  small,  yet  with  all  the  thirst  of 
the  East  for  schools  and  churches ;  the  Western  elements 
were  large,  and  the  Southern  even  larger.  These,  espe- 
cially the  latter,  brought  in  a  type  of  civilization  not  the 
most  favorable  for  the  upbuilding  of  a  stable  common- 
wealth.    There  was  little  real  preference  for  slavery, 

^ Myron  Eells'  "Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Dr.  Atkinson,"  from 
which  many  of  the  following  facts  are  derived. 


202  Leavening  the  Nation 

but  strong  sympathy  with  Southern  ideals.  Their  taste 
in  rehgious  matters  was  distinctly  lower  than  that  of 
Atkinson.  The  wild  excitements  of  camp-meeting  were 
preferred  to  the  orderly  and  continuous  services  of  the 
church.  The  proverb,  "like  priest,  like  people,"  was 
reversed,  and  a  class  of  preachers  came  in,  not  to  elevate 
the  taste  of  the  people,  but  to  gratify  a  taste  already 
depraved.  The  parson  who  thanked  God  he  was  "not 
edicated  "  became  too  common  a  figure.  It  took  some 
years  for  these  incongruous  elements  to  mingle;  indeed, 
the  population  of  Oregon  never  lost  a  certain  sectional 
cast  and  became  definitely  homogeneous  until  after  the 
Civil  War. 

These  conditions  all  combined  to  make  early  home- 
missionary  work  difficult  and  slow  of  fruit.  A  less 
plucky  or  less  consecrated  man  than  Atkinson  would 
have  yielded  to  homesickness  and  sought  pastures  new 
and  more  congenial.  It  has  been  said  that  he  found  two 
languages  among  the  people,  "a  power  of  religion,"  "a 
heap  of  education,"  and  "a  right  smart  chance  of  Chris- 
tians"; but  there  were  many  also  from  the  East  who 
talked  the  same  moral  vernacular  that  he  did,  "and 
among  them  Aarons  and  Hurs  to  hold  up  and  strengthen 
his  hands." 

Dr.  Atkinson's  missionary  service  divides  sharply  into 
three  periods — fifteen  years  as  pastor  at  Oregon  City,  nine 
and  a  half  years  as  pastor  in  Portland,  and  fifteen  years 
as  General  Missionary  and  Superintendent  of  Home 
Missions.  Yet  in  all  these  relations  he  was  first,  midst, 
and  always  a  missionary — and  he  was  more:  he  had 
been  gifted  with  something  of  the  far  vision  of  the  seer, 
and  with  not  a  little  of  the  judicial  temperament  of  the 
statesman. 


Oregon  and  Washington  203 

When  the  Boston  Board  of  Trade  and  the  New  York 
Chamber  of  Commerce  would  know  of  the  prospects  and 
possibihties  of  the  far  Northwest,  they  passed  by  the 
pohtical  orator  and  the  corporation  promoter,  and  called 
on  Geo.  H.  Atkinson,  the  missionary,  to  instruct  them. 
He  was  neither  overwhelmed  by  the  compliment  nor 
confused  by  the  demand.  His  address  before  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  over  an  hour  long,  is  a  history, 
a  prophecy,  and  an  oration  in  one.  Of  commerce  he 
spoke  as  a  merchant  prince  might  speak;  of  railroads, 
with  the  famiharity  of  a  corporation  president,  of  re- 
sources, like  a  capitalist.  Wise  men  hstened  to  him  as 
to  an  oracle,  and  thanked  him  for  valuable  information; 
yet  he  was  only  a  missionary. 

A  series  of  articles  by  him,  published  in  the  Oregonian, 
attracted  the  attention  of  Congress  and  the  Government; 
and  well  might,  for  they  traversed  every  interest,  present 
and  prospective,  of  the  State  he  loved:  lands,  crops, 
climate,  rivers,  harbors,  mining,  geological  formations, 
grading  of  railroads,  exports,  imports,  tonnage,  lumber, 
coal,  lime,  iron,  fish,  grasses,  soils,  fruits,  cereals — of  all 
of  them  he  wrote  with  a  marvelous  personal  knowledge, 
and  as  an  expert  might  write.  Yet  all  these  interests 
were  but  the  avocations  of  a  busy  life.  He  was  always 
and  above  all  other  things  a  missionary. 

When  at  the  close  of  forty  years  of  labor  a  grateful 
people  gathered  about  his  grave.  Dr.  T.  Eaton  Clapp,  his 
successor  in  the  Portland  pastorate,  used  these  words, 
whose  fitness  no  one  conversant  with  his  busy  life  could 
deny:  "In  unwearied  devotion,  in  indomitable  industry, 
in  varied  learning,  in  patient  self-sacrifice,  in  high  mo- 
tive, in  pure  philanthropy,  in  loyalty  to  God,  in  eminent 
usefulness,  for  forty  unbroken  years,  all  in  all,  can  his 


204  Leavening  the  Nation 

activity  be  matched  thus  far  in  our  history?  Measured 
by  the  highest  standards,  does  he  not  he  before  us  thus 
far  the  most  eminent  citizen  of  Oregon?  "  It  was  a  lofty 
eulogy,  but  time  has  approved  its  truth. 

When  Dr.  Atkinson  reached  Oregon  in  1848,  he  found 
two  Presbyterian  ministers,  Rev.  Lewis  Thompson  and 
Rev.  H.  H.  Spalding;  two  Baptist  ministers  and  two 
churches,  three  Cumberland  Presbyterian  ministers,  a 
number  of  Methodists,  with  six  missionaries  and  twelve 
or  fifteen  local  preachers,  some  Campbellites,  and  numer- 
ous Catholics.  He  found  also  four  Congregational  min- 
isters and  two  churches,  one  near  Hillsboro,  of  which 
Rev.  J.  S.  Griffin  was  pastor,  and  one  at  Forest  Grove, 
with  Rev.  Harvey  Clark  as  pastor.  All  these  churches 
together  numbered  about  thirty  members — enough  for 
leaven. 

Atkinson  took  charge  at  Oregon  City,  then  the  capital, 
began  in  a  private  house,  and  removed  thence  to  the 
court-house.  Being  forced  out  of  these  quarters  by  the 
needs  of  the  government,  the  people  bought  land  and 
built  a  church,  at  the  cost  of  about  $4,000.  It  was  the 
first  church  edifice  to  be  dedicated.  He  himself  shoul- 
dered the  debt,  from  which  for  ten  years  he  was  never  free. 
For  fifteen  years  his  connection  with  this  church  con- 
tinued, until  called  to  the  First  Church  in  Portland.  The 
membership  had  grown  to  fifty,  and  the  Home  Mission- 
ary Society  had  invested  $7,600, 

At  Portland  Dr.  Atkinson  remained  nine  and  a  half 
years.  Then  began  his  service  as  General  Missionary, 
which  developed  quite  naturally  into  the  Superintend- 
ency  of  the  State.  For  fifteen  years  he  was  the  organ- 
izer of  churches,  the  pastor  of  pastors,  the  wise,  cautious 
and  successful  promoter  of  gospel  and  educational  in- 


Oregon  and  Washington  205 

stitutions.  His  missionary  joiirneyings  took  him  from 
the  lower  Cohimbia  to  Puget  Sound,  to  the  Idaho  Une, 
and  frequently  to  the  far  East.  His  yearly  travel 
averaged  10,000  miles.  He  saw  the  Congregational 
churches  of  Oregon,  Washington,  and  Idaho  increase 
from  12  to  104,  and  their  membership  from  400  to  as 
many  thousands. 

With  the  true  New  England  instinct  his  interest  in 
education  was  second  only  to  that  in  church  planting. 
Before  leaving  Boston  in  1847,  he  purchased  $2,000 
worth  of  school-books  for  Oregon.  The  Territory  at  that 
time  had  no  common-school  system.  He  was  made  first 
school  superintendent  of  Clackamas  county,  and,  later, 
county  superintendent  of  Multonomah  county.  In 
Portland  the  ''Atkinson  School"  is  at  once  the  fruit  and 
the  memorial  of  his  services  to  that  city.  He  estabhshed 
the  Clackamas  County  Female  Seminary,  and,  by  de- 
voting his  spare  time  as  a  teacher  in  the  institution, 
freed  himself  from  burdensome  debts  incurred  in  church 
building.  He  founded  Steilacoom  Academy  and  served 
as  a  trustee  for  Fidalgo  and  Cheny  academies.  Before 
leaving  Boston  in  1847,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Theron  Baldwin,  the  eminent  college  builder.  That 
interview  brought  fruit  in  the  opening  of  Tulatin  Acad- 
emy at  Forest  Grove,  which  has  since  grown  into  the 
flourishing  Pacific  University.  When  Whitman  Semi- 
nary was  incorporated  in  1859,  he  was  one  of  its  trustees, 
and  remained  the  faithful  friend  of  Whitman  College  to 
the  end  of  his  life. 

We  have  dwelt  with  some  minuteness  on  the  career  of 
Dr.  Atkinson  for  the  reason  that  he  was  truly  the  pioneer 
missionary,  and  easily  the  chief  promoter  of  Oregon's 
early  development — social,  commercial,  educational,  and 


2o6  Leavening  the  Nation 

religious.  It  is  not  often  given  to  one  man  to  sell  his  life 
so  dearly  or  to  leave  so  broad  a  mark  upon  an  infant 
State.  Other  leaders  came  to  share  his  labors,  but  never 
to  dispute  the  palm  he  had  so  worthily  won. 

Prominent  among  them  was  Rev.  Aaron  L.  Lindsley, 
D.D.,  LL.D.,  who  has  been  called  the  "Presbyterian 
Statesman  of  the  Pacific  Northwest."  After  successful 
pastorates  in  New  York  and  Wisconsin,  in  his  fiftieth 
year  and  in  the  prime  of  his  strength  and  experience, 
he  crossed  the  plains  in  1868  to  take  charge  of  "the 
little  Presbyterian  church"  in  Portland.  "His  coming 
marked  the  beginning  of  a  new  era  in  religious  work  in 
the  Pacific  Northwest.  He  planned  with  far-seeing 
wisdom,  flinging  himself  into  the  work  with  whole- 
hearted zeal."  He  found  a  church  of  eighty  members 
fainting  and  discouraged.  He  left  it  one  of  the  strongest 
churches  of  the  denomination.  From  being  a  feeble 
infant  of  the  Home  Missionary  Society  it  became 
"the  Mother  of  Home  Missions."  Out  of  it  grew  eight 
churches  in  Portland  alone.  Its  benevolent  contribu- 
tions under  Dr.  Lindsley' s  ministry  amounted  to  a  quar- 
ter of  a  million  dollars.  Outside  of  Portland  he  or- 
ganized twenty-two  churches  and  dedicated  as  many 
buildings.  Said  one:  "He  must  found  colleges,  create 
Presbyteries  and  Synods,  inaugiu-ate  missions,  and 
organize  awakened  desire  into  permanent  institutions." 
Alaska  and  its  natives  specially  awakened  his  sympathy, 
and  when  missionary  fvmds  failed  to  inaugurate  work 
in  that  Territory,  he  began  it  at  his  own  expense  and 
that  of  his  church.  In  company  with  Dr.  Sheldon 
Jackson  and  Secretary  Henry  Kendall,  he  visited  the 
North  and  helped  to  locate  the  strategic  points.  It  has 
been  worthily  said  of  him  that  "his  contributions  to  the 


Oregon  and  Washington  207 

intellectual  and  spiritual  interests  of  the  Pacific  North- 
west are  beyond  computation,  and  no  true  history  of  this 
region  can  be  written  without  giving  him  a  large  place."  * 
The  last  years  of  his  life  were  spent  as  a  professor  of^- 
Practical  Theology  in  the  San  Francisco  Presbyterian 
Seminary.  Would  that  all  professors  of  theology  might 
be  as  well  qualified  by  experience  to  inspire  the  hearts 
of  young  men ! 

Concerning  the  recent  home-missionary  history  of 
Oregon,  Superintendent  G.  F.  Clapp  remarks:  "In  ten 
recent  years  forty-five  churches  have  been  organized, 
thirty-six  of  which  remain  unto  this  present  day,  but 
some  are  fallen  asleep.  The  home-missionary  churches 
received  into  fellowship  dm-ing  this  period  more  than 
five  thousand  persons,  nearly  two  thirds  of  them  on  con- 
fession of  faith.  This  is  something  to  be  devoutly  grate- 
ful for.  They  have  sustained  more  than  forty  Sunday- 
schools,  into  which  are  gathered  three  thousand  young 
people.  They  are  sustaining  twenty-eight  Christian 
Endeavor  Societies,  with  an  enrolled  membership  of 
more  than  seven  hundred.  Nearly  all  the  chm-ches  which 
were  lost  might  easily  have  been  saved  but  for  the  finan- 
cial stress  which  curtailed  the  available  funds  for  their 
support.  One  or  two  were  not  fortimately  located,  or 
the  center  of  their  constituency  was  removed,  and  one 
or  two  cherished  a  'Kentucky  friendship,'  till  their 
record  was  a  repetition  of  the  historic  felines  of  Kil- 
kenny." 

Six  years  before  Oregon  was  admitted  to  Statehood, 
Washington,  including  Idaho,  had  been  set  off  as  a  Terri- 
tory.    This  was  in  1853.     It  remained  a  Territory  until 

^  "  Home  Missionary   Hero  Series,"   Presbyterian  Board   of 

Missions. 


2o8  Leavening  the  Nation 

1889,  when  it  became  a  State  under  the  Constitution. 
Thus  during  most  of  the  period  of  Dr  Atkinson's  mis- 
sionary superintendency,  down  in  fact  to  1888,  his  dio- 
cese included  not  only  Oregon  but  Washington  and 
Idaho.  It  was  then  (1888)  that  his  immense  field  was 
divided  according  to  State  lines  and  Reuben  A.  Beard  was 
made  missionary  superintendent  of  Washington  and 
Idaho,  Atkinson  retaining  charge  of  Oregon  until  his 
death.  Since  1883  he  had  been  relieved  of  part  of  the 
burden  by  the  appointment  of  two  most  efficient  gen- 
eral missionaries — C.  C.  Otis  for  the  Puget  Sound  region, 
and  N.  S.  Cobleigh  for  Eastern  Washington. 

At  the  time  of  Dr.  Beard's  appointment,  Washington 
was  preparing  for  immediate  Statehood.  Its  settlement 
had  been  hindered  for  many  years  by  mountain  barriers 
and  the  slow  development  of  railroad  communications. 
But  with  the  opening  of  the  Northern  Pacific  in  1883, 
population  was  suddenly  and  marvelously  accelerated. 
In  1853  Washington  had  less  than  4,000  inhabitants ;  in 
1860,  11,500;  in  1870,  24,000.  In  1875  population  had 
reached  only  36,000.  This  was  before  Statehood  or 
railroads.  In  1880  it  had  leaped  to  75,120,  and  ten 
years  later,  in  1890,  to  349,390.  The  census  of  1900 
reveals  a  population  of  517,672. 

At  this  stage  Dr.  Beard  was  fully  justified  in  writing: 
"The  eyes  of  the  world  are  upon  this  State  as  they  never 
were  before  upon  any  part  of  our  country.  During 
the  month  of  February  last,  a  newspaper  reporter  made 
inquiry  of  passengers  who  were  passing  through  Chicago 
with  tickets  for  points  west  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and 
found  that,  out  of  9,300  such,  7,850  were  bound  for  the 
State  of  Washington.  The  growth  is  simply  phenome- 
nal and  unparalleled,  and  while  it  is  doubtless  true  that 


Oregon  and  Washington  209 

the  country  will  be  overboomed,  the  bottom  can  never 
drop  out,  as  has  sometimes  been  true  in  other  rapidly 
growing  sections.  The  variety  and  extent  of  the  natural 
resources  make  such  a  result  impossible.  Values  may 
be  pushed  too  high,  are  so  now,  but  a  drop  in  prices  will 
only  affect  individuals  who  have  tried  to  get  rich  through 
mere  speculation.  Every  kind  of  material  necessary  to 
the  production  of  manufactured  articles  is  here  within 
easy  reach,  and  when  the  manufacturer  has  his  goods 
ready  for  sale,  he  has  access  to  the  markets  of  the  world. 
This  State  is  at  once  a  mine,  a  market,  and  a  garden. 
Professor  Hart  of  Harvard  College,  in  a  recent  article  on 
the  "Rise  of  American  Cities/'  attempts  to  show  that  all 
future  great  cities  will  grow  up  out  of  present  cities,  great 
or  small,  but  facts  such  as  I  have  given  compelled  him  to 
add  this  modifying  sentence:  "There  will  be  no  more 
surprises,  except,  perhaps,  in  the  Puget  Sound  region." 

Toward  meeting  this  new  and  almost  unprecedented 
demand,  home-missionary  labor  and  capital  were  prompt- 
ly directed.  In  1871  the  American  Home  Missionary 
Society  had  eight  missionaries  in  Washington.  In  1901 
it  had  eighty-five.  For  years  between  1880  and  1900,  its 
annual  appropriation  to  Washington  was  more  than 
double  that  made  to  any  other  single  State  or  section  of 
the  land,  and  it  is  still  notably  in  excess  of  most  of  its 
apportionments.  Under  this  generous  cultiu-e  nearly 
140  churches  and  stations  have  been  opened,  and  a 
goodly  proportion  of  these  have  reached  or  are  approach- 
ing self-support. 

The  interest  of  the  East  in  Washington  was  noticeably 
advanced  by  the  voluntary  offer  of  six  young  men  of 
Yale  Divinity  School  to  form  a  Washington  Band. 
They  were  members  of  the  class  of  1890.     During  the 


2IO  Leavening  the  Nation 

previous  summer  vacation  three  of  them  had  done  serv- 
ice for  the  Home  Missionary  Society  in  North  Dakota 
and  Colorado.  They  came  back  inspired  with  missionary 
zeal,  and  soon  inspired  others  with  their  view  of  the 
needs  and  opportunities  of  the  West.  They  were  well 
quahfied  to  succeed  in  the  best  pulpits  of  New  England, 
and  were  sought  by  such;  their  deliberate  choice  of 
Western  work  was  one  of  pure  desire  to  put  out  their 
talents  and  acquirements  where  they  were  most  needed, 
and  would  tell  most  for  the  country  and  the  kingdom. 
Thus  the  rapidly  growing  towns  of  Eastern  Washington 
attracted  them,  and  followed  by  the  earnest  counsels  of 
Dr.  R.  R.  Meredith,  and  the  tender,  consecrating  prayer 
of  Dr.  A.  H.  Clapp,  they  started  for  their  distant  fields 
of  labor. 

One  feature  of  the  Yale  Washington  Band  was  to  a 
degree  peculiar,  though  not  wholly  untried  by  the  earlier 
band  of  Dakota.  They  proposed  to  carry  their  identity 
as  a  Band  into  the  service;  accordingly  they  were  so 
located  that,  while  each  man  held  his  distinct  field,  it  was 
possible  by  easy  connections  to  help  one  another,  and,  if 
the  occasion  arose,  to  rally  the  entire  band  at  any  one 
point  for  united  effort.  The  plan  proved  invaluable  for 
fellowship,  for  study  and  discussion,  and  above  all,  as 
it  soon  appeared,  for  united  evangelistic  effort.  The 
workers  knew  and  understood  each  other  thoroughly, 
and  their  campaigns  for  the  upbuilding  of  their  several 
churches  had  the  enthusiasm  and  unity  of  six  men  who 
saw  eye  to  eye. 

More  than  ten  years  have  passed.  Four  of  the  Band 
are  still  in  the  Pacific  Northwest:  Rev.  S.  B.  L.  Penrose, 
President  of  Whitman  College;  Rev.  Edward  L.  Smith, 
pastor  of  a  growing  church  in  Seattle;  Rev.  John  T. 


Oregon  and  Washington  211 

Nichols,  pastor  of  the  Edgewater  Church  of  the  same 
city;  Rev.  Wilham  Davies,  late  of  Nome  and  Douglass, 
Alaska.  Rev.  Lucius  O.  Baird  was  called  from  the 
Coast  to  the  strong  church  at  Ottawa,  111. ;  and  Rev.  G. 
E.  Hooker,  after  exceptional  success  in  Washington,  has 
given  himself  to  the  study  of  sociological  problems.  The 
estimate  of  the  work  accomplished  by  this  devoted  com- 
pany, as  summed  up  by  Rev.  E.  L.  Smith,  is  well  within 
the  truth,  but  all  too  modest.  ''The  results  have  not 
been  startling,  but  they  have  justified  abundantly  the 
hopes  and  expectations  of  the  Washington  Band.  There 
has  always  been  the  heartiest  cooperation  with  the 
other  ministers  on  the  field.  There  has  been  no  jealousy, 
only  mutual  appreciation  and  friendship.  The  common 
meetings  of  the  Band,  under  the  evident  needs  of  the 
communities,  became  seasons  of  earnest  evangelistic 
effort,  in  place  of  anticipated  retreats  for  study  and  dis- 
cussion of  theological  themes.  But  God  has  always  led, 
and  the  following  has  been  a  delight."  ^ 

Thirty  years  are  long  enough  to  make  or  mar  the 
destiny  of  a  young  and  rapidly  growing  commonwealth. 
At  the  end  of  thirty  years  of  home-missionary  endeavor, 
it  is  the  privilege  of  a  home-missionary  worker  who  has 
not  spared  some  of  the  best  years  of  his  life  to  the  Wash- 
ington work  to  bear  this  testimony:  ''To-day  Washing- 
ton is  a  well-organized  commonwealth  taking  an  honor- 
able place  in  the  sisterhood  of  States.  In  its  four  corners 
are  well-built  cities,  and  distributed  throughout  the 
State  are  towns  of  lesser  proportions,  but  equally  well 
built,  all  of  which  compare  favorably  with  similar  cities 
and  towns  in  the  older  States.  Investments  are  equally 
secure  and  remunerative.  The  State  is  provided  with  a 
*  Home  Missionary,  Jan.,  1901,  p.  194. 


212  Leavening  the  Nation 

good  public-school  system,  which  is  so  well  worked  that, 
except  in  the  most  isolated  communities,  children  can  re- 
ceive an  education  fitting  them  for  the  ordinary  respon- 
sibilities and  privileges  of  life.  Besides  the  common 
schools,  the  State  has  a  well-equipped  university,  an 
agricultural  college,  and  three  normal  schools.  Private 
and  denominational  academies  and  colleges  are  located  in 
different  parts  of  the  State,  well  in  the  lead  of  which  is 
Whitman  College,  with  four  academies  as  feeders.  The 
home  and  social  life  of  the  people  is  like  that  of  the  older 
States — not  equal  in  the  wealth  of  attainment,  but  fully 
equal  in  the  purity  preserved  and  the  high  ideals  towards 
which  all  are  striving."  ^ 

This  noble  result  has  not  been  gained  by  accident. 
Left  to  itself,  the  early  wild  rush  of  immigration  would 
have  gravitated  to  barbarism  in  many  forms.  But  the 
home  missionary,  inspired  and  sustained  by  the  churches 
of  the  East,  many  of  which  were  themselves  the  fruit  of 
home-missionary  sacrifice,  followed  swiftly  on  the  track. 
Every  division  of  the  Church  took  part  in  the  effort,  and 
all  have  had  their  reward.  Methodists  were  not  slow, 
and  they  have  240  churches  with  a  membership  of 
13,000.  Baptist  home  missions  are  represented  by  100 
churches  and  4,000  communicants;  Presbyterian,  by 
another  100  churches  and  4,500  members;  Congrega- 
tional, by  130  churches  and  a  membership  of  over  6,000, 
In  thirty  brief  years  a  new  State,  as  wild  as  nature  ever 
made,  and  a  population  as  heterogeneous  as  fate  ever 
threw  together,  shows  a  percentage  of  religious  forces 
equal  to  Nebraska,  only  a  little  lower  than  Colorado, 
and  rapidly  gaining  upon  the  long  established  common- 
wealths of  the  East. 

*  A.  J.  Bailey,  Home  Missionary,  April,  1901,  p.  247. 


XIV 
THE   MEXICAN   CESSION— CALIFORNIA 

Among  the  States  entered  by  the  home  missionary, 
CaUfornia,  by  its  natural  features  and  its  early  history, 
holds  a  unique  position. 

With  the  occupation  of  Iowa  and  Wisconsin  in  1833, 
the  westward  home-missionary  movement  appeared  to 
reach  a  temporary  limit.  For  the  next  eleven  years  it 
made  Httle  advance  territorially,  when  in  1846  it  leaped, 
at  one  bound,  to  the  Pacific  Coast.  Two  missionaries 
in  that  year  made  their  way  aroimd  Cape  Horn,  by  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  to  Oregon,  and  two  years  later,  in  1848, 
the  home-missionary  history  of  California  began. 

Cahfornia  is  one  of  the  few  possessions  of  the  United 
States  obtained  by  conquest.  The  popular  conception 
runs  that  it  was  ceded  to  our  Government  for  $15,000,000 
as  part  of  the  spoil  of  the  Mexican  War.  But  unless 
Professor  Royce,  in  his  elaborate  volume  in  the  series  of 
"American  Commonwealths,"  is  greatly  at  fault,  this  is 
not  the  whole  truth.  Before  the  war  with  Mexico  began, 
it  is  probable  that  California,  while  still  a  Mexican  pro- 
vince, was  invaded  by  Captain  John  C.  Fremont  with 
secret  instructions  from  the  Washington  authorities  to 
coerce  it  with  a  military  government;  which  was  done 
while  the  territory  was  yet  in  the  possession  of  a  peaceful 
neighbor.  There  is  much  evidence  also  that  the  scheme 
was  inspired  in  the  interest  of  slavery,  and  with  the 

213 


214  Leavening  the  Nation 

ultimate  purpose  of  extending  its  domain.  If  the  latter 
supposition  be  correct  the  plot  was  signally  defeated  by 
the  action  of  the  First  Constitutional  Convention  in 
1850,  which  voted  unanimously  that  the  new  State 
should  be  forever  free  from  the  curse  of  American 
slavery. 

Cahfornia  is  an  empire  for  size  second  only  to  Texas 
in  area.  Twenty  States  like  Massachusetts  would  not 
fill  it.  Transfer  it  to  the  other  side  of  the  map,  letting  it 
stretch  from  the  northern  point  of  Maine  down  the  Atlan- 
tic coast,  and  its  southern  border  would  penetrate  the 
State  of  Virginia.  Lying  as  it  does  north  and  south,  it 
has  every  grade  of  climate — from  the  ice  and  snow  of  the 
middle  temperate  zone,  to  the  heat  and  verdure  of  the 
tropics.  Its  soil  is  phenomenal  in  productive  power. 
Everything  in  California  grows  large.  It  is  the  paradise 
of  great  fruits  and  vegetables,  of  big  trees  and  big  stories. 
Never  is  it  safe  to  doubt  one  of  the  latter,  for  it  will  be 
instantly  overmatched  by  a  greater,  and  however  in- 
credible, they  are  generally  true. 

Never  has  any  State  been  born  into  the  Union  with 
greater  agony  than  California.  The  crucial  year  of  its 
early  history  was  1849.  Then  while  a  mere  possession  of 
the  United  States,  without  State  law  or  even  Territorial 
government,  gold  was  discovered  at  Sutter's  Mill.  Like 
a  flame  the  news  spread  around  the  world.  Within 
twelve  months  the  previously  scanty  population  was  in- 
creased by  the  arrival  of  200,000  immigrants,  representing 
every  State  in  the  Union  and  nearly  every  land  under 
the  sun.  Around  Cape  Horn,  across  the  Isthmus,  by  the 
long  overland  routes,  and  over  the  sea  from  the  ends  of 
the  earth  they  came,  with  one  consuming  passion  for 
gold.    They  were  of  all  kinds — the  good,  the  bad,  and  the 


California  215 

very  bad;  of  which  the  latter  was  a  formidable  propor- 
tion. 

Here  was  a  new  and  gigantic  home-missionary  problem. 
For  the  most  part  this  mob  of  gold-seekers  were  not 
typical  Western  immigrants.  They  had  httle  interest  in 
the  development  of  a  new  State.  They  were  not  seeking 
to  found  homes,  but  only  to  amass  their  pile  and  to  retm-n 
as  quickly  as  possible  from  whence  they  came.  In  the 
total  absence  of  law  each  man  was  a  law  unto  himself, 
and  might  was  right.  Without  governor  to  rule  over 
them,  with  no  comets  to  administer  law,  with  no  law  to 
be  administered,  terror  and  disorder  w^ere  inevitable. 
The  "Vigilance  Committee"  took  the  place  of  the  court 
— a  court  in  which  an  irresponsible  body  of  men  made 
itself  at  once  prosecutor,  judge,  jury,  and  executioner. 
Every  accused  person  had  a  trial  with  some  semblance 
of  fairness,  and  probably  few,  if  any,  suffered  innocently; 
indeed  there  was  no  necessity,  since  the  guilty  were 
everywhere  abundant  and  easy  to  find.  Yet  this  im- 
promptu tribunal  was  but  a  rough  image  of  justice, 
necessary  as  times  were,  and  perhaps  the  only  possible 
in  the  emergency.  But  these  were  dark  days  in  the 
early  history  of  CaUfornia.  For  many  lurid  months 
social  and  moral  chaos  reigned,  out  of  which,  with  the 
help  of  an  excellent  State  Constitution  in  1850,  the  birth 
of  order  was  slowly  and  painfully  evolved. 

It  is  still  a  keen  delight,  and  becoming  rarer  every 
year,  to  meet  with  one  of  these  original  "Forty  Niners," 
especially  if  he  happens  to  be  in  a  communicative  mood. 
One  will  hear  more  strange  bits  of  experience  out  of  real 
life  than  novelist  ever  dreamed,  and  will  come  away 
feehng  as  he  used  to  feel  when  a  boy  in  rising  from  an 
Arabian  Night's  Entertainment. 


2i6  Leavening  the  Nation 

While  these  strange  things  were  transpiring, — indeed, 
before  the  wild  rush  toward  the  Golden  State  had  fairly- 
begun, — a  humble  event  occurred  in  New  York  City  of 
which  httle  mention  has  been  made  by  the  historian  of 
the  period;  yet  it  was  one  of  the  "things  that  are  not" 
which  God  employs  to  bring  to  naught  "things  that  are." 

Two  missionaries  were  commissioned  at  the  Bible 
House  to  begin  labor  in  California.  These  two  men, 
J.  W.  Douglas  and  S.  H.  Willey,  sailed  on  the  first  day 
of  December,  1848,  by  the  first  steamer  that  ever  carried 
passengers  for  California  by  the  way  of  Panama.  One 
of  them,  Mr.  Willey,  was  destined  for  Monterey,  then  the 
seat  of  what  government  there  was ;  and  the  other,  Mr. 
Douglas,  for  San  Francisco.  After  exciting  experiences 
by  sea  and  land,  they  reached  their  destination  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  following  February,  having  been  nearly 
three  months  on  the  way.  Here  they  were  welcomed 
by  T.  D.  Hunt  of  Honolulu,  whom  the  people  of  San 
Francisco  had  elected  to  be  "Chaplain  of  the  town  for 
one  year."  Mr.  Hunt  was  thus  the  first  missionary  on 
the  ground.  On  the  eighth  of  September,  1850,  this 
humble  force  was  strengthened  by  the  ordination  in 
Broadway  Tabernacle  of  James  H.  Warren.  Dr.  Joseph 
P.  Thompson  preached  the  sermon;  Dr.  Richard  S.  Storrs 
voiced  the  fellowship  of  the  churches;  and  Dr.  Milton 
Badger,  then  Senior  Secretary  of  the  American  Home 
Missionary  Society,  gave  the  young  candidate  his  charge. 
Among  other  things.  Dr.  Badger  counselled  him,  though 
rivers  of  gold  ran  at  his  feet,  never  to  stoop  and  drink  of 
the  poisoned  stream,  but  rather  to  die  a  poor  man,  if  by 
so  doing  he  might  point  others  to  the  true  riches. 

With  this  charge  ringing  in  his  ears,  Mr.  Warren  and 
his  devoted  wife  entered  upon  their  fife-work  in  the 


California  217 

Golden  State.  These  more  than  fifty  years  he  has  never 
really  laid  off  the  harness  of  service.  Fourteen  years 
a  missionary,  painfully  laying  foundations;  twenty- 
seven  years  a  missionary  superintendent,  travelhng  tens 
of  thousands  of  miles;  "in  journeys  oft,"  planning,  build- 
ing, cheering,  comforting,  sowing  with  tears  and  reaping 
with  joy,  never  himself  discouraged,  and  charged  with 
a  surplus  of  good- cheer  which  he  poured  into  the  fainting 
hearts  of  his  brethren — few  men  have  done  more  to  the 
honor  of  Home  Missions  than  Dr.  Warren.  He  survives 
in  a  hale  old  age  to  tell  the  story,  and,  it  is  hoped,  to  put 
that  story  into  a  valuable  and  enduring  form.  Those 
early  days  of  California  may  seem  in  this  rapid  age  hke 
very  ancient  history;  but  let  it  be  remembered  that  Dr. 
S.  H.  Willey  and  Dr.  J.  H.  Warren,  who  witnessed  the 
very  genesis  of  the  State,  and  have  borne  a  conspicuous 
part  in  its  religious  development,  are  alive  to-day,  still 
working,  even  while  they  rest,  under  the  spreading 
branches  of  the  tree  whose  seed  they  planted  in  1849. 

In  June,  1898,  just  fifty  years  from  his  arrival  on  the 
coast.  Rev.  Dr.  Willey  was  present  at  the  Seventy-second 
Anniversary  of  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society, 
held  that  year  in  Cleveland,  Ohio,  He  was  received 
with  all  the  honor  due  to  a  veteran,  making  an  extended 
and  most  valuable  address  upon  the  conditions  as  he 
found  them  in  1849.  For  the  following  facts  the  author 
is  chiefly  indebted  to  that  address. 

Two  branches  of  business  overshadowed  all  others — 
mining  and  furnishing  supphes  for  miners.  San  Fran- 
cisco was  a  rough,  ungraded  town  of  from  eight  to  ten 
thousand  people.  Thirty  thousand  miners  were  at  work 
in  the  foot-hills  of  the  Sierras.  There  was  not  a  Protes- 
tant church  or  house  of  worship  or  school  of  any  land  in 


2i8  Leavening  the  Nation 

all  California.  The  mass  of  the  people  scarcely  knew 
the  Sabbath  from  any  other  day.  Ships  were  arriving 
daily,  passengers  were  landing  and  pitching  their  tents 
among  the  sand-hills  about  the  town,  remaining  only 
long  enough  to  fit  themselves  for  the  mines.  They  were 
strangers  from  many  lands,  speaking  many  tongues,  and 
the  confusion  and  the  excitement  were  intensified  by 
strong  drink  and  gambUng. 

Around  the  bay  of  San  Francisco,  settlements  were 
springing  up  in  need  of  the  gospel  ministry,  and  the 
mining  camps  were  in  still  greater  need;  but  the  condi- 
tions were  strange  and  unexampled.  Small  bands  of 
Christian  disciples  were  found  in  several  places,  but  their 
stay  was  uncertain  and  their  means  small.  Land  titles 
were  almost  worthless,  and  the  building  of  churches  and 
schoolhouses  was  at  the  builders'  risk.  A  rough  court- 
room, a  canvas  tent,  a  rude  carpenter's  shop  had  to 
suffice  for  a  sanctuary,  and  these  had  but  slight  attrac- 
tion for  men  absorbed  in  pursuit  of  gold. 

Part  of  the  missionary's  duty  was  to  go  from  camp  to 
camp  soliciting  gold-dust  by  the  ounce  for  the  building 
of  the  church.  But  everything  was  against  permanent 
effort  along  missionary  lines.  "California  is  a  bubble 
that  will  soon  burst,"  was  the  cry  of  the  East,  while  local 
opinion  was  pretty  much  agreed  that  all  it  would  ever  be 
good  for  was  mining,  not  fit  therefore  for  family  life,  and 
not  worth  a  serious  missionary  effort.  Some  elect  souls 
there  were  who  believed  in  the  future  of  California  as  a 
great  State,  and  had  nearly  completed  a  church  building, 
importing  the  lumber,  every  stick  of  it,  from  Maine 
around  Cape  Horn.  Within  a  few  weeks  of  its  dedica- 
tion the  entire  business  section  of  the  town  was  swept  by 
fire,  and  although  the  church  was  spared,  the  builders 


California  219 

were  bankrupt.  At  a  fearful  rate  of  interest,  money  to 
complete  the  structure  was  borrowed,  and  thus  the  enter- 
prise for  years  was  seriously  crippled  by  debt.  On  Sun- 
day, one  week  after  the  dedication,  the  fire  alarm  sounded 
again  in  the  midst  of  the  morning  service,  and  most  of  the 
town  spared  by  the  first  conflagration  was  swept  away. 

Before  midsummer  of  '49  five  churches  had  been  or- 
ganized in  San  Francisco — Congregational,  Presbyterian, 
Baptist,  Methodist,  and  Episcopal — numbering  from 
ten  to  twenty  members  each.  The  Baptists  were  first 
to  dedicate  a  church  building.  The  missionary  force  at 
this  time  did  not  exceed  twenty  in  the  whole  State,  often 
hundreds  of  miles  apart,  and  compelled  by  their  small 
numbers  to  almost  wholly  neglect  the  mining  camps. 
It  was  then  that  the  Pacific  came  to  life  as  a  travelling 
missionary.  It  was  eagerly  received  and  read  in  the 
camps,  and  suppHed  the  want  of  the  hving  preacher  to 
a  remarkable  degree.  This  was  in  1851,  and  it  still  sur- 
vives. 

Education  was  not  forgotten.  A  Christian  college 
was  planned  in  the  early  days,  and  sustained  for  twenty 
years  solely  on  home  resources  without  aid  from  the 
East.  Meanwhile  society  changed  and  improved.  Men 
found  that  California  was  good  for  something  besides 
mining.  Many  sent  for  their  famihes.  Women  and 
children  began  to  appear  in  the  Sunday  gatherings. 
More  missionaries  were  needed,  and  the  missionary 
societies  of  the  East  were  senchng  them  out.  Churches 
multiplied  and  grew  and  their  influence  appeared  in  the 
better  morals  and  manners  of  the  community. 

The  early  conditions  of  a  commonwealth,  like  the  en- 
vironments of  a  child,  have  lasting  consequences.  Speak- 
ing of  the  crucial  decade,  1846-1856,  Professor  Royce, 


220  Leavening  the  Nation 

a  native  Californian  and  not  chargeable  with  prejudice, 
comments  as  follows:  "Everything  that  has  since  hap- 
pened in  California,  or  that  ever  will  happen  so  long  as 
men  dwell  in  the  land,  must  be  deeply  affected  by  the 
forces  of  local  hfe  and  society  that  then  took  their  origin. 
We  Americans  showed  in  early  Cahfornia  new  failings 
and  new  strength.  We  exhibited  a  novel  degree  of  care- 
lessness and  overhastiness,  an  extravagant  trust  in  luck, 
a  previously  unknown  blindness  to  our  social  duties,  and 
an  indifference  to  the  rights  of  foreigners  whereof  we 
cannot  be  proud.  But  we  also  showed  our  best  national 
traits — traits  that  went  far  to  atone  for  our  faults. 
As  a  body,  our  pioneer  community  in  California  was 
persistently  cheerful,  energetic,  courageous,  and  teach- 
able. In  a  few  years  it  had  repented  of  its  graver  faults; 
it  had  endured  with  charming  good  humor  their  severest 
penalties;  and  it  was  ready  to  begin  with  fresh  devotion 
the  work  whose  true  importance  it  had  now  at  length 
learned — the  work  of  building  up  a  well-organized,  per- 
manent and  progressive  State  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  In 
this  work  it  has  been  engaged  ever  since,  with  fortunes 
that  always,  amid  the  most  remarkable  changes,  have 
preserved  a  curious  likeness  to  the  fortunes  of  the  early 
days,  and  that  in  numerous  instances  have  led  to  a 
more  or  less  noteworthy  and  complete  repetition  of  cer- 
tain early  trials,  blunders,  sins,  penalties,  virtues,  and 
triumphs."  ^ 

Southern  California  at  this  time  was  but  lightly  affected 
by  the  excitement  at  the  North.  It  was  almost  a  foreign 
country,  having  few  English-speaking  residents.  For 
eighteen  years,  from  1849  to  1867,  the  southern  section  of 

'  "California,"  American  Commonwealth  Series. 


Henry  Kendall,  D.D. 

Corresponding  Secretary  of    the  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the 

Presbyterian  Church  from  iS6i  to  1892. 


California  221 

the  State  was  almost  wholly  without  any  organized 
Protestant  influence.  Dr.  Warren,  in  1865, reports  "one 
Protestant  minister  and  one  Protestant  house  of  worship." 
The  country  was  given  up  to  Popery,  Mormonism,  and 
almost  complete  destitution  of  religious  privileges;  "and 
yet,"  adds  Dr.  Warren,  "it  is  the  best  country  on  which 
the  sun  shines."  Rev.  Alexander  Parker  was  the  first 
missionary  on  the  ground  in  1866.  Ten  years  later 
Superintendent  James  T.  Ford  remarks:  "Then  (1866) 
the  closed  store  on  the  Lord's  day  was  a  singular  excep- 
tion to  the  general  rule;  now  the  open  store  is  the  excep- 
tion. Then  every  grocer  must  furnish  whiskey  and  wine 
for  his  customers,  or  forfeit  his  business ;  now  treating  to 
secure  custom  is  a  practice  left  so  far  back  in  the  past  as 
to  be  almost  forgotten.  Then  a  revival  of  religion  mov- 
ing a  whole  commimity  was  a  thing  rarely  if  ever  heard 
of  in  Southern  California ;  now  crowds  gather  to  hear  the 
evangelist,  and  he  finds  a  susceptibility  to  religious  im- 
pression not  exceeded  in  the  most  favored  places  of  the 
East.  Then  church  members  were  an  unfashionable  few, 
in  many  places  not  one  in  twenty  of  the  people;  now  in 
several  of  our  more  prominent  towns  more  than  one 
third  of  the  people  are  counted  on  the  church  lists." 

These  rapid  and  marvelous  changes  are  due  in  the 
judgment  of  Superintendent  John  L.  Maile  to  two  causes 
—a  large  immigration  of  Christian  people,  and  the  dona- 
tion of  large  simis  of  money  by  various  home-missionary 
boards  that  the  beginning  of  settlements  might  be  ac- 
companied by  a  preaching  ministry  and  the  prompt 
organization  of  churches  and  Sunday-schools."  ^ 

It  would  require  a  long  chapter  to  describe  the  effect 

^Home  Missionary,  Jan.,  1902,  p.  163. 


222  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  the  opening  of  California  upon  the  churches  of  the 
East.  The  Northwest  Territory  had  been  recognized  as 
a  great  opportunity  and  the  Louisiana  Purchase  as  a 
providential  expansion.  Home  missionaries  were  flying 
upon  the  track  of  immigrants  that  were  pouring  into  these 
newly  acquired  possessions.  But  neither  of  them  ap- 
pealed to  the  imagination  or  to  the  missionary  spirit  of 
the  churches  in  the  same  degree  as  California.  The 
Pacific  had  been  reached;  a  new  world  lay  beyond; 
gold  had  been  discovered;  the  ends  of  the  earth  were 
flocking  to  California;  a  region  rich  in  strange  beauty 
and  glowing  with  a  romantic  history  had  been  suddenly 
opened.  The  papers  of  the  day,  both  religious  and  secu- 
lar, were  full  of  the  matter.  California  became  the  theme 
of  sermons  and  missionary  addresses  without  number. 
The  strategic  position  of  the  new  Territory  was  even  then 
clearly  discerned  by  the  orators  of  the  church,  and  this 
was  pressed  with  great  earnestness  upon  the  people  as  a 
motive  to  home-missionary  endeavor,  for  the  sake  not 
merely  of  the  nation,  but  of  the  nations. 

"The  acquisition  of  California,"  said  Dr.  Badger  in 
1849,  "  has  devolved  upon  the  American  churches  a  new 
duty.  The  magnitude  of  this  duty  does  not  consist  in  the 
extent  of  the  country,  nor  even  its  admitted  resources, 
but  chiefly  in  its  position  on  the  globe.  The  great  depos- 
itory of  means  of  human  improvement  are  concentrated 
on  this  side  of  the  globe ;  while  the  great  mass  of  heathen- 
ism lies  as  far  as  possible  on  the  opposite  side  of  Asia  and 
in  the  islands  of  the  Pacific.  What  more  probable  than 
that  the  next  step  of  Providence  toward  the  enlighten- 
ing of  the  heathen  world  will  be  to  take  some  advanced 
position  far  on  towards  the  strongholds  of  paganism, 
from  whence  those  great  auxiliaries  of  the  gospel,  com- 


California  223 

merce  and  civilized  intercourse  may  act  with  directness 
and  vigor?  Such  an  advanced  post  is  the  western  coast  0} 
America." 

Something  of  the  same  far  vision  was  before  the  eyes  of 
Dr.  Geo.  B,  Cheever,  when  in  the  same  year  he  made  his 
pulpit  ring  with  these  words:  "The  Coast  of  the  Pacific 
is  to  be  lined  like  the  Atlantic  with  the  villages  and  cities 
of  a  Christian  civihzation.  We  have  hardly  as  yet  had 
time  to  think  of  this.  We  have  been  laboring  eastward 
to  beleaguer  the  kingdoms  of  darkness  with  our  camps  of 
light;  to  get  access  to  China  and  the  midnighted  Spice 
Islands  of  the  Eastern  Seas;  and  now  is  God  going  to 
advance  upon  them  across  the  ocean  from  the  west. 
The  way  of  speediest,  most  electric,  communication  be- 
tween America  and  Eastern  Asia  will  soon  be  from  Cali- 
fornia to  the  Chinese  seas.  It  was  with  some  reference 
to  a  time  like  this  that  the  Sandwich  Islands  have  been 
so  long  preparing.  Those  may  yet  be  God's  great  ma- 
rine depots  of  missionary  power,  and  centers  for  the 
world's  missionary  commerce." 

And  again  it  was  Isaac  H.  Brayton  who  came  across 
the  continent  in  the  early  fifties  from  his  California  mis- 
sion field  to  echo  the  same  sentiment  at  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  the  Home  Missionary  Society.  ''What  a  vision 
now  arises  before  me!  dream-like  in  beauty  but  certain 
as  destiny !  It  is  not  a  vision  for  many  days ;  its  fulfill- 
ment is  already  progressing.  I  see  the  four  great  com- 
mercial centers  whose  cities  belt  the  globe,  London, 
New  York,  San  Francisco,  and  Shanghai,  brought  by 
steam  into  quick  and  constant  connection.  Along  a 
rambling  track,  across  our  continent,  pours  a  stream  of 
commerce,  a  tide  of  travel.  I  see  the  Pacific  alive  with 
vessels.      They    visit    every   island;    penetrate    every 


224  Leavening  the  Nation 

province  of  Asia;  old  prejudices  give  way;  new  thoughts 
infuse  life  into  the  slumbering  islands,  and  wake  up  the 
dormant  East.  On  these  passing  and  repassing  ships 
I  see  the  nations  astir.  Swarthy  Turks  come  to  fill  Chris- 
tian temples  on  our  shore.  The  old  Orient  receives 
light  from  the  glowing  Occident.  The  beams  shimmer 
across  the  sea;  they  touch  the  islands;  they  begin  to 
rise  in  their  dawn  over  Asia.  Night  flees  away;  morn- 
ing comes." 

It  was  not  here  and  there  but  everywhere  and  contin- 
ually at  the  East  that  these  prophetic  views  were  dis- 
seminated which  quickened  the  missionary  zeal  of  the 
churches,  and  with  them  more  immediately  practical 
motives  were  not  forgotten.  The  Independent  of  Jan.  4, 
1849,  founds  an  appeal  for  more  generous  support  of 
missionaries  upon  the  current  cost  of  living  on  the 
Pacific  Coast — "common  clerks  on  a  salary  of  $2,500 
and  board!  laundry,  eight  dollars  a  dozen;  hotel  waiters 
receiving  $1,700  per  year,  and  a  missionary's  board  six 
dollars  a  day."  So  by  the  combined  appeals,  patriotic, 
prophetic,  and  practical,  some  of  the  largest  givers  to 
home  missions  were  moved  to  treble  and  quadruple  their 
donations  to  the  missionary  boards. 

Reactions  came;  they  were  bound  to  come.  Like  all 
young  States,  Cahfornia  was  overboomed  and  had  to 
suffer  the  penalty  of  forced  and  unhealthy  growth.  This 
was  true  both  in  her  material  and  spiritual  development. 
Within  twenty  years  of  the  discovery  of  gold  we  begin 
to  hear  of  ''premature  and  delusive  prosperity."  "This 
is  a  foreign  mission,"  writes  one.  "The  State  has  never 
been  settled,  only  inhabited  and  plucked.  Few  care  to 
hear  the  gospel,  fewer  have  cared  to  pay  anything  for  it, 
and  fewest  of  all  have  had  a  heart  to  work  and  strive 


California  225 

together  for  it."  This  instabihty  of  Christian  endeavor 
was  fearfully  discouraging  to  the  workers,  and  at  times 
almost  threatened  to  stop  the  work.  The  labor  of 
"gathering"  had  to  be  done  ''over  and  over  and  over 
again."  When  a  claim  gave  out,  the  miner  and  his 
family  were  off  for  a  better  prospect.  If  others  came 
in  they  had  to  be  "gathered"  anew  only  to  be  scat- 
tered again.  Outside  the  mines  the  imcertain  titles  to 
lands  kept  the  would-be  settler  on  the  move.  A  prom- 
ising missionary  eagerly  called  from  the  East  to  take 
an  important  field  arrived  only  to  find  that  one  half 
the  church  that  called  him  and  pledged  his  support  had 
moved  away  while  he  was  en  route.  These  unstable 
conditions  began  to  tell  not  only  upon  the  courage  of 
the  faithful  few  who  clung  to  the  ideal  of  a  Christian 
commonwealth,  but  also  upon  the  faith  of  Eastern  givers 
on  whom  they  relied  for  help. 

In  1858  we  find  the  Association  and  Synod  of  Cali- 
fornia discussing  the  question  whether  home  missions  in 
that  State  should  be  deemed  a  failure.  After  a  thor- 
ough review  of  all  discouragements  and  drawbacks,  they 
reached  this  Christian  conclusion:  "That  if  any  people 
ever  needed  the  gospel  it  is  just  such  a  people,  and  if  such 
a  people  are  to  have  the  gospel  it  must  be  sent  to  them 
even  though  it  be  unasked."  To  such  an  attitude  on 
the  part  of  men  thus  burdened  with  a  sickening  sense  of 
failure  there  could  be  but  one  response  from  the  mis- 
sionary boards.  "It  would  be  a  crime  and  a  blunder," 
they  said  to  leave  California  to  herself.  "A  glorious 
harvest,"  they  told  the  churches,  "awaits  our  hand  if 
we  endure  to  the  end  " ;  and  with  new  motives  they  sum- 
moned the  friends  of  home  missions  "to  put  generous 
harvests  under  the  sod  for  the  garner  of  the  future." 


226  Leavening  the  Nation 

That  future  is  our  present.  California's  day  of  small 
things  and  disheartening  reaction  is  over.  What  is 
the  harvest?  In  1899  the  Congregationahsts  of  the 
State  celebrated  their  semi-centennial.  The  story  re- 
hearsed on  that  occasion  reads  like  a  fairy  tale.  Men 
and  women  were  present  who  had  witnessed  the  begin- 
nings and  were  a  part  of  all  that  followed.  The  Con- 
gregational hosts  were  numbered,  and  though  they  are 
not  the  largest  tribe  of  the  Pacific  Israel,  they  are  per- 
mitted to  call  the  roll  of  more  than  two  hundred  churches 
with  nearly  20,000  communicants,  who,  with  their  prede- 
cessors gone  to  glory,  have  contributed  a  round  million 
of  dollars  to  the  benevolences  of  the  Church.  Nine 
tenths  of  these  churches  are  of  home-missionary  origin, 
and  have  been  nurtured  by  the  stronger  churches  of  the 
East  at  a  total  cost  of  $600,000.  When  Dr.  Badger  in 
Broadway  Tabernacle  charged  the  youthful  Warren,  not 
even  he,  with  all  his  Christian  optimism,  caught  any 
vision  of  such  results,  and  not  the  most  hopeful  friends 
of  home  missions  in  the  East  dreamed  at  that  time  of 
the  marvelous  story  then  beginning  to  unfold. 

Congregationahsts  are  but  one  division  of  the  Home 
Missionary  Army  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  not  the 
largest.  Baptists  have  165  churches  and  a  membership 
of  12,000;  Methodists  600  churches  and  a  membership 
of  40,000;  Presbyterians  276  churches  and  20,000  com- 
municants; Episcopahans  more  than  100  churches  and 
a  following  of  10,000;  and  the  Reformed  Church  is  not 
without  its  representatives.  Not  one  in  ten  of  these 
churches  would  have  had  courage  to  be  born  without 
home-missionary  help.  Their  total  membership,  with 
that  of  other  religious  forces  not  named  in  this  summary, 
is  only  a  little  less  than  300,000, — a  moral  force  that  is 


California  227 

leavening  the  private  and  public  life  of  the  Common- 
wealth. In  spite  of  its  Spanish  origin,  its  tumultuous 
birth  into  the  Union,  and  its  eariy  days  of  disorder  and 
instability,  California  ranks  to-day,  in  the  per  cent,  of 
its  reUgious  forces,  abreast  with  Kansas,  in  advance  of 
Oregon  and  Washington,  and  within  easy  hail  of  New 
Hampshire  and  South  Dakota. 


XV 


THE  MEXICAN  CESSION— UTAH,  NEW  MEXICO, 
ARIZONA 

Utah,  deriving  its  name  from  the  Yutah  tribe  or 
nation,  its  early  occupants,  was  set  apart  as  a  Territory 
in  1850.  It  formed  a  part  of  the  large  tract  acquired 
from  Mexico  as  the  fruit  of  our  Mexican  War.  After 
forty-six  years  of  struggle  for  Statehood  it  was  admitted 
to  the  Union  in  January,  1896.  With  its  85,000  square 
miles  it  is  the  smallest  State  in  the  group  to  which  it 
belongs,  having  about  the  area  of  Kansas.  Little  was 
known  of  the  region  down  to  1800,  except  by  Spanish 
explorers.  "Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  we  find 
United  States  fur  hunters  standing  on  the  border  of  the 
Great  Salt  Lake,  tasting  its  brackish  waters  and  wonder- 
ing if  it  is  an  arm  of  the  sea."  ^  To  James  Bridger, 
leader  of  the  party,  is  ascribed  the  honor  of  that  unique 
discovery. 

With  the  opening  of  Oregon  and  California  in  the  early 
forties,  the  overland  trail  led  through  Northern  Utah  and 
the  region  became  somewhat  better  known.  Over  this 
route  came  Wliitman  and  Lovejoy  on  their  heroic  jour- 
ney to  Washington  in  the  winter  of  1842,  and  one  year 
later  Fremont  and  Kit  Carson  reached  Salt  Lake,  and 
for  a  while  beheved  themselves  to  be  its  discoverers. 

» H.  H.  Bancroft,  "  History  of  Utah,"  p.  18. 

228 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  229 

But  thus  far  Utah  was  a  thoroughfare  only,  without 
homes  or  permanent  residents.  The  actual  settlement 
began  in  1847  with  the  arrival  of  Brigham  Young  and  a 
company  of  Mormons,  or,  as  they  preferred  to  be  called, 
"  Latter-Day  Saints."  The  company  consisted  of  143  per- 
sons, including  three  women.  They  had  seventy-three 
wagons  drawn  by  horses  and  mules  and  loaded  chiefly 
with  grain  and  farming  implements.  The  journey 
hither  had  been  one  of  faith,  with  no  certain  destination 
in  view.  Visions  had  been  given  to  their  leader,  and 
when  questioned  by  his  company  whither  they  were 
going  and  when  their  journey  would  end,  his  only  reply 
was  that  he  would  know  the  spot  when  he  should  see  it. 

It  was  on  the  twenty-first  of  June,  1847,  that  they 
reached  a  bench  or  terrace  among  the  mountains,  from 
which  the  hghted  valley,  the  winding  river,  and  the 
sparkhng  lake  came  suddenly  into  view.  Their  leader 
was  confined  to  his  litter  by  an  attack  of  mountain 
fever,  but  sitting  up  in  his  bed  he  surveyed  the  scene. 
His  own  testimony  is:  "The  spirit  of  light  rested  upon 
me  and  hovered  over  the  valley,  and  I  felt  that  there 
the  saints  would  find  protection  and  safety."  His 
vision  was  realized,  and  to  his  followers  he  said  simply: 
"It  is  enough.     This  is  the  right  place.     Drive  on." 

Whatever  spiritual  delusions  blinded  these  people, 
they  were  practical,  far-sighted  pioneers.  Tn  thirty  days 
they  accomplished  more,  says  Willford  Woodruff,  "than 
can  be  found  on  record  concerning  an  equal  number  of 
men  in  the  same  time  since  Adam.  We  have  travelled 
with  heavily  laden  wagons  more  than  a  thousand  miles, 
over  rough  roads,  mountains  and  canyons,  searching  out 
a  land,  a  resting-place  for  the  saints.  We  have  laid  out 
a  city  two  miles  square  and  built  a  fort  of  hewn  timber 


230  Leavening  the  Nation 

drawn  seven  miles  from  the  mountain,  and  of  sun-dried 
bricks  or  adobes,  surrounding  ten  acres  of  ground,  forty 
rods  of  which  we  covered  with  blockhouses,  besides  plant- 
ing about  ten  acres  of  corn  and  vegetables." 

These  first  comers  were  the  vanguard  of  an  army.  On 
July  4  of  the  same  year  a  much  larger  company  left  Illi- 
nois for  the  new  City  of  Zion.  It  numbered  about  1,550, 
and  included  588  wagons  and  about  2,000  oxen,  besides 
horses,  cows,  and  sheep.  And  thus  it  was  that  Utah,  al- 
most unknown  to  the  world,  was  preempted  by  a  colony  of 
strange  people,  differing  radically  from  all  other  Western 
migrations.  "There  is  only  one  example  in  the  annals 
of  America  of  the  organization  of  a  commonwealth  upon 
the  principles  of  pure  theocracy.  There  is  only  one  ex- 
ample here  where  the  founding  of  a  State  grew  out  of  the 
founding  of  a  new  rehgion.  Other  instances  there  have 
been  of  the  occupation  of  wild  tracts  on  this  continent 
by  people  flying  before  persecution,  or  desirous  of 
greater  religious  hberty;  there  were  the  Quakers,  the 
Huguenots,  and  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  Rehgion  has  often 
played  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  settlement  of  the  New 
World,  and  there  has  been  present  at  times  in  some  de- 
gree the  theocratic,  if  not  indeed  the  hierarchal  idea; 
but  it  has  been  long  since  the  world,  the  old  continent  or 
the  new,  has  witnessed  anything  like  a  new  rehgion  suc- 
cessfully estabhshed  and  set  in  prosperous  running  order 
upon  the  fullest  and  combined  principles  of  theocracy, 
hierarchy,  and  patriarchy."  ^ 

The  story  of  this  sect,  its  origin,  its  tenets,  its  amazing 
growth  from  a  humble  beginning  of  six  converts,  its 
migration  from  New  York  to  Ohio,  from  Ohio  to  Mis- 

>H.  H.  Bancroft,  "History  of  Utah"  (preface). 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  231 

souri,  from  Missouri  to  Illinois,  the  revelation  of  polyg- 
amy made  to  its  leaders  in  that  State,  the  furious  perse- 
cution that  followed,  resulting  in  the  violent  death  of 
Joseph  Smith  and  the  final  migration  of  the  church  to 
the  wilds  of  Utah — all  these  are  more  than  thrice  told 
tales,  grown  trite  by  repetition.  With  so  many  versions 
of  the  story,  all  of  which  are  so  easily  accessible,  another 
rehearsal  here  would  be  superfluous.^ 

What  more  directly  concerns  us  is  to  note  the  abso- 
lutely new  demand  made  upon  Home  Missions  by  this 
strange  sect  and  its  teachings.  The  home-missionary 
movement  began  with  families  emigrating  from  New 
England  to  the  early  West.  Their  old  neighbors  in  Con- 
necticut and  Massachusetts  followed  them  with  mission- 
aries who  were  to  put  in  the  schools  and  churches,  while 
the  pioneers  cleared  the  land  and  built  the  cabins.  It 
was  a  division  of  labor  in  which  the  home  missionary 
undertook  the  spiritual  part — a  kindly  fellow^ship  as  wel- 
come to  the  new  settler  as  it  was  indispensable  to  the 
success  of  his  enterprise.  With  the  growth  of  foreign 
immigration  these  conditions  were  sensibly  changed,  and 
home  missions  enlarged  its  sphere.  Alien  masses  were 
not  only  to  be  Christianized  by  a  gospel  new  to  them,  but 

*  Books  of  reference  are  almost  ^\athout  number.  H.  H.  Ban- 
croft devotes  600  pages  of  his  26th  volume  to  the  story  of 
Mormonism,  \Adth  apparent  fairness  to  all  sides.  M.  W.  Mont- 
gomery's "Mormon  Delusion,"  as  its  name  implies,  is  a  searching 
expose  from  a  gentile  point  of  view.  Josiah  Strong's  7th  Chap- 
ter ("Our  Country")  is  a  calm,  convincing  statement  of  the 
Mormon  peril.  In  Dr.  Do3'le's  "Presbyterian  Home  Missions" 
is  an  admirable  condensed  account  of  the  story.  The  League 
for  Social  Ser^^ce  has  a  series  of  anti-Mormon  leaflets  compiled 
by  competent  authorities.  Rev.  J.  D.  Nutting  of  Cleveland,  O., 
has  issued  anti-Mormon  literature  of  great  value. 


232  Leavening  the  Nation 

they  were  to  be  assimilated  with  the  body  pohtic  and 
transformed  into  genuine  and  loyal  American  citizens. 
It  was  a  new  and  delicate  undertaking,  but  its  possi- 
bihty  has  been  fully  demonstrated. 

The  problem  introduced  with  Mormonism  was  unlike 
either  of  those  named.  Here  were  people  of  New  Eng- 
land ancestry  setting  up  a  theocracy,  a  hierarchy,  and  a 
patriarchy  in  the  very  heart  of  the  home-missionary  belt ; 
defending  and  practicing,  in  the  name  of  religion,  a  con- 
ception of  marriage  "which  originated  in  the  twihght 
of  the  race,  and  which  for  many  years  has  survived  only 
in  the  darkness  of  heathenism  " ;  ^  a  hierarchy  also  highly 
organized,  diabolically  active,  and  amazingly  successful 
in  winning  converts ;  hostile  in  every  fiber  to  evangelical 
religion,  to  constituted  government,  and  to  the  highest 
American  ideals.  For  the  sake  of  the  Mormon  himself, 
for  the  sake  of  the  gentile  living  within  his  gates,  for  the 
sake  of  innocent  children  born  into  this  evil  estate,  and 
for  the  sake  of  America  and  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  home  missions  heard  and  heeded  the  call  of  this 
imprecedented  need  and  peril. 

It  is  claimed  by  some  that  Mormonism  has  the  same 
standing  among  the  sects  as  Congregationalism,  Presby- 
terianism,  Methodism,  or  Universalism,  and  that  it  is 
entitled  to  the  same  tolerance  and  respect;  that  it  is 
permitted  to  win  its  way  with  other  denominations  by 
the  reasonableness  of  its  claims  and  by  its  skill  in  en- 
forcing them.  The  reply  to  this  plausible  plea  is  well 
made  in  the  "Ten  Reasons  why  Christians  cannot  fellov*^- 
ship  with  the  Mormon  Church,"  issued  jointly  by  the 
Presbyterians,  Congregationalists,  and  Baptists  of  Utah 
and  given  here  in  a  condensed  form : 

*  Dr.  Strong's  "Political  Aspects  of  Mormonism,"  p.  4. 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  233 

1.  The  Mormon  Church  unchurches  all  Christians. 

2.  The  Mormon  Church  places  the  Book  of  Mormon 
and  the  Book  of  Doctrines  and  Covenants  on  a  par  with 
the  Bible,  equally  inspired  and  binding. 

3.  The  Mormon  Church  makes  Joseph  Smith  a  Prophet 
of  God,  and  all  who  reject  him,  heretics, 

4.  The  Mormon  Church  makes  faith  in  the  Mormon 
Priesthood  essential  to  salvation,  and  denial  of  its  au- 
thority a  damnable  sin. 

5.  The  Mormon  Church  teaches  a  doctrine  of  God  that 
is  anti-scriptural,  dishonorable  to  the  Divine  Being,  and 
debasing  to  man. 

6.  The  Mormon  Church  teaches  that  Adam  is  God, 
and  that  Jesus  Christ  is  his  son  by  natural  generation. 

7.  The  Mormon  Church  is  polytheistic.  It  teaches 
the  pluraUty  of  Gods. 

8.  The  Mormon  Church  teaches  an  anti-Biblical  doc- 
trine of  salvation, 

9.  The  Mormon  Church  believes  in  polygamy.  The 
doctrine  is  to  them  both  sacred  and  fundamental. 

10.  The  Mormon  Church  teaches  that  God  is  a  polyga- 
mist. 

To  publish  the  articles  of  such  a  creed  may  almost 
demand  an  apology.  The  only  justification  is  the  abun- 
dant testimony  it  affords  that  Mormonism  is  fatal  to  the 
spiritual  life  of  its  converts,  an  enemy  to  the  sanctity 
of  home  and  the  purity  of  society,  a  menace  to  American 
civihzation,  and,  therefore,  to  be  actively  opposed  like 
every  other  manifest  public  evil. 

In  1849  a  State  government  was  organized  under  the 
name  of  Deseret.  Congress  refused  to  recognize  it,  and 
created  in  its  stead  a  Territorial  government,  of  which 
Brigham  Young  was  appointed  governor.    The  popu- 


2  34  Leavening  the  Nation 

lation  at  this  time  was  about  11,000.  In  ten  years  it 
rose  to  40,000;  in  1865  it  was  80,000,  one  fourth  of  which 
were  Indians.  Gentiles  to  the  number  of  four  or  five 
hundred  were  settled  in  Salt  Lake  City,  and  it  was  with 
this  nucleus  that  organized  home-missionary  effort  began. 

Significantly,  the  first  demand  for  a  Christian  ministry, 
publicly  voiced,  comes  from  General  P.  E.  Conner,  com- 
manding the  Federal  forces  in  Utah,  himself  a  Catholic. 
"To  me," says  General  Conner, "it  has  long  been  a  source 
of  no  little  surprise  that  while  the  several  denominations 
of  the  Church  send  their  missionaries  to  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  earth  to  redeem  mankind,  it  has  never  been 
seriously  thought  that  here,  between  either  verge  of  this 
great  continent,  is  to  be  found  the  grandest  field  for  mis- 
sionary labor.  Leaving  out  of  view,  entirely,  the  wants 
and  religious  necessities  of  the  soldiers  of  this  command 
and  Gentiles  congregated  here,  the  Mormon  people  them- 
selves have  greater  need  of  missionary  labor  than  any 
other  people  or  community  on  the  face  of  the  earth," 

It  was  this  appeal,  significant  in  itself  and  still  more 
so  from  its  source,  which  led  the  American  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  to  detach  Rev.  Norman  McLeod  from 
the  Denver  field,  and  instruct  him  by  telegraph  to  open 
a  mission  in  Salt  Lake  City.  His  coming  was  heartily 
welcomed.  The  Daily  Union  Vidctte,  published  by  the 
officers  and  soldiers  of  Camp  Douglas,  hailed  the  event 
as  follows:  "The  Eastern  stage  which  reached  here 
Monday  night,  brought  to  our  city  the  Rev.  Norman 
McLeod,  who  proposes  to  organize  here  a  congregation 
for  divine  worship.  It  is  not  doubted  that  his  zealous 
efforts  in  behalf  of  Christianity  will  be  warmly  seconded 
by  the  American  and  loyal  citizens  of  Salt  Lake,  and 
that  ere  long  we  shall  boast  a  thriving  church  and  con- 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  235 

gregation."  The  report  of  Mr.  McLeod's  first  service, 
as  given  by  the  same  paper,  contains  the  following: 
"Sunday,  Jan.  22,  1865,  will  ever  be  a  memorable  day 
in  Utah.  If  we  mistake  not,  when  the  anniversaries  of 
battles,  of  bloody  fields,  and  heroic  struggles  shall  have 
been  forgotten,  yesterday  will  be  remembered  with 
praise  and  thanksgiving.  A  new  era  has  dawned.  It 
was  a  novel  thing  to  hear  the  word  of  the  hving  God 
proclaimed  in  Utah,  to  hear  the  preacher  lift  up  his  voice 
in  behalf  of  our  country,  and  teach  Christ  and  Him 
crucified.  We  were  grateful  to  see  that  the  large  congre- 
gation was  not  entirely  composed  of  so-called  Gentiles, 
but  many  of  the  Saints  were  present." 

This  first  attempt  to  plant  the  gospel  in  Utah,  though 
so  heartily  welcomed,  was  short-Hved,  but  vigorous  to 
the  end.  A  church  of  18  members  and  a  Sunday- 
school  of  over  200  children  were  organized;  large  con- 
gregations came  to  listen  to  the  missionary.  Mormons 
in  great  numbers  were  drawn  to  hear  his  anti-polygamy 
and  anti-Mormon  lectures.  The  leaders  threatened  that 
the  bold  preacher  should  never  leave  the  Territory  alive, 
and  on  the  whole  the  promise  of  the  future  was  bright. 
Unfortunately,  General  Conner  and  his  force  were  re- 
moved at  this  time  to  Denver.  In  their  absence  vio- 
lence took  courage,  and  one  of  the  first  victims  was  Dr. 
King  Robinson,  McLeod's  right-hand  man  and  the  su- 
perintendent of  his  Sunday-school.  Both  men  were  cor- 
dially hated  by  the  Mormon  leaders,  who  were  believed 
to  be  responsible  for  the  murder  of  Robinson,  although 
the  deed  was  never  brought  home  to  them  through  the 
courts.  Without  military  protection  Christian  worship 
became  unsafe.  Mr.  McLeod  was  not  permitted  by  the 
Society  to  risk  his  fife  by  continued  service,  and  the  mis- 


236  Leavening  the  Nation 

sion  was  abandoned  after  two  years  of  plucky  endeavor. 
Six  years  passed  before  he  returned  to  Salt  Lake  as  a 
missionary.  He  then  gathered  what  remnants  of  his  old 
chiu-ch  survived,  organized  them  anew  and  soon  called 
about  him  a  congregation  of  800  to  1,000.  This  was  the 
second  birth  of  Congregationalism  in  Utah,  which  re- 
sulted in  the  flourishing  First  Church,  Salt  Lake,  with 
its  present  membership  of  nearly  five  hundred,  of  which 
Dr.  C.  T.  Brown  is  pastor,  and  where  Dr.  W.  M.  Barrows 
began  his  ministry. 

In  the  interval  between  1867  and  1873  came  the  Pres- 
byterians to  Utah.  Secretary  Henry  Kendall  and  Shel- 
don Jackson  carefully  explored  the  ground,  and  Rev. 
Mr,  Hughes  began  work  at  Corinne  in  1869.  In  1871  the 
same  Board  entered  Salt  Lake  City,  Josiah  Welch  or- 
ganizing the  first  Presbyterian  church.  The  year  1875 
was  signahzed  by  the  opening  of  the  first  interior  mis- 
sion, under  D.  J.  McMillan,  who  settled  at  Mt.  Pleasant. 
Six  years  of  perilous  and  self-denying  labor  on  the  part 
of  Dr.  McMillan  were  rich  in  results.  Four  churches 
were  gathered  in  the  very  heart  of  Mormondom,  and 
twenty  schools  established  with  1,500  children  of  Mor- 
mon parentage. 

From  the  very  beginnings  of  missionary  effort  in  Utah 
one  need  was  made  overwhelmingly  apparent,  that  of 
Christian  schools.  Mormon  schools  were  strictly  nur- 
series of  the  Mormon  Church.  Children  of  Gentiles  could 
not  attend  them  without  danger  of  contamination,  and 
for  Mormon  children  there  was  no  hope,  in  such  schools, 
of  Christian  enlightenment.  The  system  of  unsectarian 
education  was  not  yet  born,  and  was  only  a  vague  hope 
of  some  distant  future.  For  these  reasons  missionary 
zeal  in  Utah  incUned  strongly  toward  educational  effort. 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  237 

The  hope  of  the  people  was  felt  to  be  in  the  children 
almost  alone.  The  churches  themselves  were  to  be  re- 
cruited from  the  young,  who  were  to  be  drawn  by  mis- 
sionary effort  within  reach  of  Christian  instruction. 

It  was  this  imperative  demand  that  led,  in  1879,  to  the 
organization  of  the  New  West  Education  Commission 
with  headquarters  in  Chicago.  Already  in  Boston  steps 
had  been  taken  towards  founding  academies  at  Salt  Lake 
City,  Santa  Fe,  and  Albuquerque,  and  Colorado  College, 
to  her  lasting  credit,  assumed  their  support  until  the 
Commission,  after  its  organization  in  1879,  relieved  it  of 
the  obligation.  But  free  Christian  schools  to  be  scat- 
tered widely  throughout  both  Territories  were  regarded 
as  equally  important  and  as  absolutely  essential  to  the 
academy  interests,  and  it  was  to  this  work  that  the  Com- 
mission gave  its  first  energies. 

In  three  years  it  had  bought  or  built  schoolhouses  in 
Salt  Lake  City,  Ogden,  Lynne,  Turton,  Himtsville, 
Morgan,  Coalville,  Hooper,  Farmington,  Centerville, 
Bountiful,  Lehi,  and  Provo.  In  ten  years  the  Commis- 
sion was  holding  property  to  the  value  of  $162,700,  partly 
in  fee  simple  and  partly  by  agreement  for  Christian  uses. 
It  had  seven  academies,  four  of  them  incorporated, 
twenty-four  free  schools  with  seventy-six  teachers  and 
3,277  pupils.  The  Congregational  churches  responded 
Hberally  to  its  appeals,  and  the  receipts,  which  in  1880 
were  about  $3,000,  climbed  before  1890  to  $75,000  per 
year. 

Among  the  founders  and  early  friends  of  the  Society 
were  Dr.  F.  A.  Noble,  first  president.  Dr.  Simeon  Gilbert, 
first  vice-president.  Col.  C.  G.  Hammond,  its  first  treas- 
urer. Dr.  E.  F.  Williams,  W.  E.  Hale,  Esq.,  and  Dr.  G.  S. 
F.  Savage.     For  more  than  ten  years  Rev.  Charles  R. 


238  Leavening  the  Nation 

Bliss  was  its  only  secretary,  and  to  his  wise  foresight 
and  tireless  devotion,  more,  probably,  than  to  any  other 
personal  influence,  the  Commission  owes  its  remarkable 
growth  and  usefulness.  Among  its  early  missionaries 
were  Lydia  Tichenor,  Edward  Benner,  and  Henry  E. 
Gordon;  Miss  Tichenor's  visits  among  the  churches  of 
the  East  and  her  fervid  appeals  were  an  important 
factor  in  rousing  public  interest. 

Economy  and  even  greater  efficiency  might  have  re- 
sulted had  the  important  work  of  the  Education  Com- 
mission been  directed  through  the  Home  Missionary 
Society,  and  the  schools  of  one  society  and  the  chm-ches 
of  the  other  been  made  a  common  interest  under  one 
management.  It  is  no  fault  of  the  Commission  that  they 
were  not.  Twice  the  work  was  offered  to  the  Home 
Missionary  Society  and  twice  declined  because  of  what 
was  then  deemed,  by  its  managers,  a  constitutional  bar- 
rier. In  the  light  of  experience,  the  same  question  aris- 
ing to-day  would  probably  receive  a  different  treatment, 
and,  at  any  cost  to  charter  or  constitution.  Christian 
schools  and  Christian  churches  in  Utah  and  New  Mexico 
would  be  made  a  joint  enterprise  under  one  adminis- 
tration. 

In  1893  the  New  West  Commission  was  united  with 
the  Congregational  College  and  Education  Society, 
which  since  that  date  has  directed  the  educational  work 
in  Utah  and  New  Mexico  which  the  Commission  so 
grandly  began.  Meanwhile  public-school  systems  in 
both  Territories  relieve  in  some  measure  the  demand, 
although  so  long  as  Mormonism  and  Romanism  are  what 
they  are  the  free  Christian  school  in  Utah  and  New 
Mexico  will  be  a  growing  rather  than  a  diminishing 
need. 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  239 

What  has  home  missions  accomplished  for  Utah? 
The  question  is  often  heard,  and  often  it  seems  to  be 
asked  with  an  almost  hopeless  accent.  What  of  the 
night?  is  the  hail  of  the  churches  to  the  watchmen  on 
the  Utah  wall,  and  the  old  answer  was  never  more  perti- 
nent, "The  morning  cometh  and  also  the  night." 

It  is  the  characteristic  of  leaven  that  once  hidden  it 
works  silently  and  continuously.  The  leaven  of  a  trans- 
forming gospel  has  been  faithfully  hidden  in  the  mass 
of  Utah  heathenism.  Nearly  one  hundred  Christian 
churches  have  been  planted  and  more  than  5,000  com- 
municants testify  to  their  power.  Christian  schools  to 
the  number  of  seventy-five  have  been  opened,  many  of 
them  in  the  very  heart  of  Mormonism.  The  Presbyte- 
rian Home  Board  reports  to  the  last  General  Assembly 
that  "powerful  missionary  agencies  are  riving  the  stu- 
pendous Mormon  system  to  atoms.  Mission  schools 
have  led  to  public  schools.  Preaching  has  resulted  in 
hundreds  of  conversions  and  the  organization  of  many 
churches.  Many  of  the  young  people  who  have  been 
reached  by  our  schools  have  renounced  the  doctrines  of 
Mormonism,  a  still  larger  number  have  had  their  faith 
shaken  though  they  have  remained  in  the  Church. 
Others  have  come  out  bravely  for  Christ  no  matter  what 
it  cost.  Hundreds  of  girls  who  have  attended  our 
schools  have  refused  to  become  polygamous  wives,  and 
the  young  men  have  asserted  their  independence  of 
priestly  authority."  The  Presbyterian  Board  speaks 
for  all  the  missionary  Boards  in  this  matter.  There  is 
progress,  though  against  heavy  odds.  The  morning 
cometh,  though  the  shadows  of  the  night  hang  so  black 
and  forbidding.  Mormonism  spreads  like  a  rank  weed; 
but  a  new  soil  is  being  created  by  home  missions.     Gen- 


240  Leavening  the  Nation 

erous  harvests  are  being  put  under  the  sod  for  future 
garnering,  and  the  Christian  people  of  America  who  will 
have  faith  in  the  future  and  faith  in  the  gospel  of  light, 
and  who  will  continue  to  show  their  faith  by  their  works, 
shall  yet  see  a  new  and  Christian  Utah. 

Crossing  the  southern  borders  of  Utah  and  Colorado, 
one  finds  himself  in  a  land  so  strange  in  the  type  of  its 
people  and  their  customs,  that  only  with  difficulty  can  he 
fancy  himself  in  the  United  States  and  under  an  Ameri- 
can government.  The  new  and  the  old,  the  very  old, 
jostle  strangely  together.  It  is  but  a  short  ride  from 
Kansas  to  the  border  of  New  Mexico,  but  in  that  brief 
space  the  traveller  passes  from  the  highest  civilization  of 
the  twentieth  century  into  a  land  where  the  savagery 
of  the  sixteenth  century  still  Ungers  almost  unchanged. 
This,  however,  is  only  a  first  impression.  Further 
acquaintance  discovers  that  the  old  is  yielding  to  the 
new;  that  the  leaven  of  the  railroad,  the  schoolhouse,  the 
church,  the  mission,  and  above  all  of  the  American  home, 
is  silently  disintegrating  the  old  type ;  and  that  it  is  only 
a  question  of  time  when  New  Mexico  and  Arizona  shall  be 
as  genuinely  American  as  Kansas,  Colorado,  or  even 
Minnesota. 

These  two  Territories  divide  with  Florida  the  distinc- 
tion of  being  the  earliest  populated  region  of  the  New 
World.  As  early  as  1526,  not  forty  years  after  Colum- 
bus, the  country  was  entered  by  the  Spaniards  and 
numerous  ruins  of  Spanish  towns  and  buildings  testify 
to  the  presence  of  their  early  colonies.  By  some,  a  pre- 
historic civilization  has  been  claimed  for  these  regions; 
but  their  architectural  remains  differ  so  widely  from  the 
Aztec  ruins  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  that  this 
theory  is  widely  disputed.    All  relics  yet  discovered 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  241 

seem  to  point  to  Spanish  origin.  The  Spanish  posses- 
sion of  New  Mexico  came  to  an  end  in  1822  with  the  in- 
dependence of  Mexico.  Thenceforward  the  region  we 
are  considering  became  a  part  of  the  RepiibHc  of  Mexico, 
until  in  1846  it  was  possessed  by  the  American  Army 
under  General  Kearney,  and,  under  the  stipulations  of 
the  treaty  that  followed,  was  transferred  from  Mexico 
to  the  United  States. 

"New  Mexico's  population  represents  three  distinct 
civihzations  and  three  distinct  periods  of  history.  Here 
are  found  the  real  aborigines  of  the  country,  the  Pueblos, 
a  name  given  alike  to  the  people  and  their  dwellings. 
They  are  a  sedentary  race  in  contrast  with  the  tribal  or 
wandering  Indians.  This  people,  the  Pueblos,  are  slowly 
disappearing;  numbering  now  about  8,000,  while  fifteen 
years  ago  they  were  some  9,000.  Nominally  Roman  con- 
verts, they  are,  rather,  worshippers  of  the  forces  of  nature, 
the  sun,  the  clouds,  the  wind  and  rain,  keeping  up  their 
heathen  dances  in  most  of  the  pueblos.  An  industrious, 
orderly,  peaceable  people,  they  become  good  citizens, 
in  many  instances  leading  the  Mexicans  in  the  intro- 
duction and  use  of  the  arts  of  civilized  life.  Among  this 
people  are  2,000  children  of  school  age. 

"The  second  element,  and  numerically  by  far  the 
largest,  is  the  Spanish-Mexican.  With  a  few  families  of 
pure  Spanish  blood,  the  great  proportion  of  the  more  than 
100,000  who  compose  this  class  are  of  mixed  Spanish  and 
Indian  blood,  speaking  the  Spanish  language,  inheriting 
the  traits  of  character  and  physique  that  belong  to  both 
the  Spanish  and  Indian  type, — 'dark  complexion,  black 
hair  and  eyes,  short  and  slight  of  stature,  slow,  quaint, 
picturesque  and  dreamy.'  A  contented  and  unam- 
bitious people,  with  that  easy-going  contentment  and 


242  Leavening  the  Nation 

that  lack  of  aspiration  which  three  centuries  of  the  ab- 
solute rule  of  a  priesthood  must  produce.  And  such  a 
priesthood!  Once  in  the  history  of  New  Mexico  the 
whole  company  of  her  priests  were  expelled  from  the 
land  because  of  the  corruption  and  immorality  of  their 
lives,  and  the  French  Jesuit  was  invited  to  take  their 
vacant  places. 

"  Into  the  midst  of  this  Spanish-Mexican  life  have  come, 
in  the  last  decade  or  two,  some  twenty  thousand  or  more 
from  the  East  and  North,  and  these  constitute  the  third 
element  of  New  Mexico's  population — the  American 
immigrant.  The  new  hfe  has  brought  in  modern  insti- 
tutions— the  railroad,  which  has  fifteen  hundred  miles  of 
its  iron  track  in  the  Territory;  the  Christian  school,  which 
has  come  through  the  labors  of  several  denominations; 
and  the  Christian  Church,  represented  by  the  larger  eccle- 
siastical bodies."  * 

Thus  have  the  old  and  the  new,  the  meal  and  the 
leaven,  been  brought  together,  and  a  hopeful  ferment 
has  begun  which  is  as  certain  in  its  result  as  the  same 
contact  has  proved  in  the  early  West,  in  the  Northwest 
Territory,  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  and  on  the  Pacific 
Coast. 

In  the  native  New  Mexican,  our  missionaries  find  a 
prepared  foundation  often  wanting  in  the  native  Ameri- 
can—an intense  rehgious  nature.  "They  possess  a  spirit 
of  reverence  and  devotion  that  I  could  wish  were  more 
prevalent  among  Americans  in  general."  ^  Mr.  Heald 
adds:  "It  is  a  great  pity  that  this  devotion  is  largely 
lavished  upon  Santos,  pictures  and  images,  many  of  them 

»  See  Home  Missionary,  Sept.,  1893,  p.  258,  article  by  Secre- 
tary Washington  Choate. 

» J.  H.  Heald,  Home  Missionary,  Oct.,  1901,  p.  95. 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  243 

of  the  rudest  sort.  Religious  sentiment  is  strong,  but 
seems  somehow  to  have  failed  to  couple  on  to  the  ten 
commandments."  Here,  indeed,  is  the  missing  hnk  which 
is  to  be  supplied  by  the  Christian  education  which  has 
been  denied  this  people  and  their  ancestors  for  many- 
hundreds  of  years.  It  was  a  sad  but  suggestive  confession 
made  by  a  prominent  Cathohc  priest  to  our  missionary, 
Birlew:  "I  want  to  give  you  some  disinterested  advice. 
Don't  waste  your  time  working  for  these  people.  You 
see  that  we  Catholics  have  been  working  for  them  300 
years  and  have  never  been  able  to  do  anything  with 
them."  To  which  the  missionary  of  Christian  education 
replied:  "When  we  have  worked  for  them  300  years,  if 
we  don't  succeed  any  better  than  you  have,  we  will  get 
out,  and  give  somebody  else  a  chance  to  try."  ^ 

"Some  of  us,"  says  Mr.  Heald,  "have  seen  the  Peni- 
tentes  go  forth  on  Good  Friday  lashing  their  bare  backs 
with  cruel  scourges  and  cactus  thorns,  or  staggering 
under  the  weight  of  a  great  cross,  perhaps  to  be  bound 
and  Ufted  thereon  in  imitation  of  our  Lord.  We  be- 
lieve that  those  who  are  capable  of  such  self-inflicted 
suffering  for  a  mistaken  superstition,  are  capable  also  of 
real  self-sacrifice,  and  we  hope  to  see  the  day  when  they 
shall  go  forth  bearing  the  real  cross  of  Jesus  and  wifling 
to  suffer  for  righteousness'  sake," — a  hope  and  faith  in 
which  all  who  believe  in  the  power  of  the  gospel  and  in 
organized  home-missionary  effort  will  fervently  join. 

The  home  missionary  entered  New  Mexico  in  1849  in 
the  person  of  W.  H.  Read,  and  the  Baptist  Board  have 
the  honor  of  commissioning  him.  His  work  was  opened 
at  Santa  Fe,  but  meeting  with  vicissitudes,  it  was  soon 
abandoned.  The  American  Missionary  Association 
*  Home  Missionary,  article  by  E.  Lyman  Hood,  p.  204. 


244  Leavening  the  Nation 

sent  W.  G.  Kephart  in  1850.  "To  reach  Santa  Fe,  he 
had  to  ride  a  thousand  miles  in  an  ox-cart,  the  time 
consumed  being  three  months."  ^  He  was  succeeded 
by  D.  F.  MacFarland,  who  in  1866  estabHshed  a  Pres- 
byterian church  and  a  mission  school  at  Santa  Fe.  The 
school  is  now  the  Santa  Fe  Boarding  School  which  has 
been  such  a  blessing  to  Mexican  girls. 

The  first  fruit  of  the  Baptist  mission  was  J.  D.  Mon- 
dragon,  captain  of  the  Penitentes  in  Taos  Valley.  By 
chance  he  wandered  into  the  mission  church  and  heard 
a  sermon.  Obtaining  a  Bible,  he  read  and  studied  it  for 
seventeen  years  and  was  taught  to  give  up  the  supersti- 
tious practices  of  the  Penitentes,  and  afterwards  became 
an  evangelist  among  his  own  people.  "  Jose  Y.  Perea 
was  the  first  Mexican  ordained  to  the  Presbyterian  min- 
istry. At  an  Eastern  college  he  imbibed  Protestant 
views.  During  a  vacation  period  he  broke  the  images 
in  his  father's  house,  and  was  soundly  whipped  for  it."  ^ 
After  sixteen  years  of  exile  on  account  of  his  Protestant 
views,  he  returned  to  New  Mexico  and  was  ordained  a 
minister  among  his  own  people.  Father  Gomez,  a  lead- 
ing CathoHc,  was  another  fruit  of  early  home  missions. 
Being  impressed  by  the  sight  of  a  Bible,  he  travelled  by 
ox-cart  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  get  one,  selling  his 
ox  to  make  the  purchase.  Unaided  he  studied  the  book 
and  gave  up  Catholicism.  These  early  conversions  indi- 
cate a  certain  hunger  for  truth  that  may  cause  surprise. 
Yet  it  would  be  stranger  still  if  people  who  had  been 
mocked  for  years  with  the  forms  and  shadows  of  spiritual 
Ufe  should  not  welcome  the  substance  when  once  placed 
before  them. 

1  Doyle's  "Presbyterian  Home  Missions,"  p.  212. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  213. 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  245 

Similar  instances  might  be  muUiphed  to  show  the  hope- 
fulness of  missionary  effort  among  these  people.  Lorenzo 
M.  Ford  was  a  full-blooded  Pueblo  Indian.  His  mother, 
on  her  dying  bed,  caused  him  to  swear  solemnly  never  to 
forsake  the  Roman  Cathohc  reUgion.  After  her  death 
a  Spanish  Don  carried  Lorenzo  off  as  a  slave  and  abused 
him.  During  the  Civil  War  he  ran  away  and  joined  the 
2d  Colorado  regiment.  The  captain  of  his  company 
lived  at  Akron,  Ohio,  and  with  him  Ford  returned  to  that 
State.  At  Hudson  he  was  converted  and  joined  the 
Congregational  Church.  His  chief  struggle  in  forsaking 
the  Cathohcs  was  the  vow  made  at  his  mother's  death- 
bed; but  even  that  yielded  before  the  stronger  claims  of 
his  new  faith.  After  a  course  of  study  at  the  Training 
School  in  Juarez,  he  was  commissioned  as  a  missionary 
to  his  own  people  at  San  Rafael,  New  Mexico. 

From  one  of  his  missionary  letters  we  quote  a  single 
incident:  "We  came  to  a  httle  ranch  and  found  a  young 
man  and  his  wife  working  at  their  wheat,  I  asked  him 
if  they  would  keep  us  over  night  and  feed  our  horses.  He 
very  kindly  said,  'With  great  pleasure,'  for  he  thought 
we  were  missionaries.  They  then  left  their  work  and 
came  to  the  house  with  us.  One  of  us  read  a  sermon  of 
Dr.  Talmage  to  him,  and  he  seemed  very  much  pleased 
with  it.  At  the  supper-table  I  asked  him  if  we  should 
ask  a  blessing,  'Yes;  if  you  hke,'  said  he.  In  the  morn- 
ing we  read  the  Bible  to  him  and  explained  some  things 
he  did  not  understand;  he  would  ask  us  questions  to 
find  out  the  truths  of  God.  He  told  us  he  wanted  this 
Christianity.     'It  is  the  one  I  want,  and  my  wife  also.' 

He  told   us    about  Father  B coming  to  him  and 

charging  $18  for  a  blessing  on  his  wheat.     The  last  time 
he  came  he  had  told  him  he  would  pay  no  more  for  his 


246  Leavening  the  Nation 

blessings,  'You  are  no  more  than  man,  and  have  no 
power  to  forgive  sins.'  So  the  Father  told  him  if  he  did 
not  pay  he  would  take  his  name  off  the  books  of  the 
church  roll.  He  said  to  the  Father:  'You  can  take 
my  name  off  the  church  roll,  but  you  cannot  take  my 
name  off  the  Lamb's  Book  of  Life  in  heaven,  for  Jesus 
put  it  there.'  We  went  on  our  way  rejoicing.  These 
poor  people  could  not  read  a  word,  but  their  love  for  the 
crucified  Saviour  was  strong."  The  conditions  here  de- 
scribed remind  one  of  the  foreign  field,  and  of  the  won- 
derful victories  of  the  gospel  when  brought  for  the  first 
time  to  souls  hungering  for  truth  and  unhardened  by 
its  appeals. 

Presbyterian  missions  in  New  Mexico  reflect  honor 
upon  the  wisdom  and  dihgence  of  their  Board.  Their 
work  includes  three  Presbyteries  in  the  Synod  of  New 
Mexico,  sixty-two  organized  congregations, — of  which 
twenty-seven  are  American,  twenty-nine  Mexican, — with 
a  total  membership  of  3,500.  There  are  thirty-eight 
ordained  missionaries,  twenty- two  evangelists  and 
helpers,  sixty  commissioned  teachers  and  1,500  enrolled 
pupils.  These  congregations  have  raised  during  the 
past  year  nearly  $29,000  for  missions  and  church  ex- 
penses. 

Methodists  show  a  total  of  sixty  organizations,  forty- 
two  church  edifices,  and  2,500  commimicants.  Baptists, 
Congregationalists,  and  Episcopalians  are  doing  a  smaller 
work,  but  of  the  same  kind,  educational  and  rehgious 
combined,  and  with  constant  and  most  cheering  tokens 
of  success. 

The  conditions  in  Arizona  do  not  differ  essentially 
from  those  found  in  New  Mexico ;  the  same  mixed  popu- 
lations, only  a  larger  relative  proportion  of  American 


Utah,  New  Mexico,  Arizona  247 

settlers,  drawn  thither  by  the  richer  mines  and  the  larger 
possibihties  of  the  soil.  Both  these  Territories  are 
knocking  for  admission  to  the  household  of  American 
commonwealths — Arizona,  with  a  population  of  113,000, 
and  New  Mexico,  with  122,000.  Various  agencies  have 
combined  to  make  them  fit  for  Statehood — natural  re- 
sources, raihoads,  a  pubUc-school  system  since  1883,  an 
American  element  which  now  controls  both  Territories 
commercially  and  pohtically,  and,  not  least  among  them, 
Protestant  churches,  established  by  home-missionary 
efforts,  in  all  the  larger  towns  and  Christian  schools,  in 
which  the  children  of  the  native  population  are  being 
trained  for  future  citizenship. 


XVI 

ALASKA,  CUBA,  PORTO  RICO 

Territorially,  Alaska  is  no  mean  possession,  com- 
prising as  it  does  one  sixth  of  the  area  of  the  United 
States.  It  fell  to  Russia  in  1741  by  right  of  discovery. 
About  the  year  1800  the  Russian- American  Fur  Com- 
pany obtained  from  the  Emperor  Paul  the  exclusive 
right  of  hunting  and  fishing  throughout  the  domain,  and 
Sitka,  "a  rude  collection  of  log  huts,"  was  made  the 
capital.  These  conditions  held  almost  without  change 
until  1867,  at  which  time  the  native  population  did  not 
exceed  27,000,  and  the  civihzed  inhabitants  were  less 
than  1,500,  divided  about  equally  between  Russians 
and  Americans. 

It  was  then  that  negotiations  began  between  the 
United  States  and  Russia  for  the  purchase  of  this  tract. 
William  H.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  was  the  author 
and  ardent  advocate  of  the  measure.  To  the  people  of 
the  United  States  almost  nothing  was  known  of  the  re- 
sources of  the  country;  it  was  called  "the  frozen  North," 
and  it  seemed  an  even  chance  whether  the  sum  paid  to 
Russia,  $7,200,000,  would  ever  return  even  a  fair  inter- 
est. The  astonishing  sequel  of  the  Alaska  Purchase  is 
now  familiar  history.  "Seward's  folly,"  as  Alaska  was 
humorously  called  at  the  time,  has  demonstrated  the 
far-sighted  wisdom  of  that  patriotic  statesman. 

Since  1867,  Alaska  has  suppUed-^furs,  fish,  and  gold 

248 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  249 

amounting  to  $150,000,000,  about  equally  divided  be- 
tween the  three.  United  States  capital  invested  in 
Alaska  approaches  $25,000,000,  besides  other  millions 
invested  in  transportation.  Annual  shipments  of  mer- 
chandise to  Alaska  aggregate  more  than  $12,000,000, 
and  have  amounted  since  the  purchase  to  more  than 
$100,000,000.  Population  has  increased  from  30,000 
to  75,000,  including  a  large  floating  element  of  miners. 
While  the  fur-seal  industry  has  declined,  the  fishing  in- 
terest has  taken  its  place,  and  Alaska  is  now  supplying 
one  half  the  salmon  of  the  country.  These  are  not 
guesses,  but  the  verdict  of  experts  employed  by  the 
government,  whose  findings  are  accepted  and  endorsed 
by  the  Treasury  Department  at  Washington. 

For  some  reason  not  quite  clear  home  missions  were 
slow  in  entering.  Ignorance  of  the  country  and  an  ex- 
aggerated idea  of  the  rigors  of  the  climate  may  account 
for  this  in  part.  But  a  more  potent  reason  may  have 
been  that  when  this  new  door  at  the  North  was  opened, 
all  the  home  boards  were  struggling  wdth  new  conditions 
at  the  South  and  West,  thrown  upon  them  suddenly  by 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  Whatever  the  reason,  it  was 
fully  ten  years  after  the  purchase  before  the  church 
began  to  reahze  its  duty  and  opportunitiy  in  Alaska. 

For  years  the  Greek  Church  had  held  the  ground  with 
its  schools  and  missions,  and  nearly  one  half  the  natives 
were  included  in  its  churches.  After  the  transfer, 
churches  and  schools  were  generally  closed.  Europeans 
in  the  fur  trade  returned  home.  "The  Lutheran  mis- 
sionary and  his  flock  abandoned  the  Territory,  and 
the  land  was  left  without  law,  government,  teachers, 
preachers,  schools,  or  charities."  * 

*S.  H.  Doyle,  "Presbyterian  Home  Missions,"  p.  114. 


250  Leavening  the  Nation 

It  was  Sheldon  Jackson,  the  stalwart  pioneer  of  the 
Presbyterian  Board,  in  1877,  who  led  the  way  to  Alaska 
and  established  the  first  American  mission  at  Fort 
Wrangel,  leaving  on  the  ground,  as  the  first  missionary 
in  the  Territory,  Mrs.  A.  R.  McFarland.  From  this  be- 
ginning, in  twenty-five  years  there  have  grown  "two 
presbyteries,  eight  native  churches,  four  white  churches 
with  over  a  thousand  church  members,  eight  native  and 
three  white  Sabbath-schools,  one  training-school,  four- 
teen mission-school  teachers,  one  hundred  and  fifty-one 
pupils,  and  a  hospital  which  requires  the  services  of  five 
workers." 

Next  to  the  Presbyterians,  the  American  Missionary 
Association,  thirteen  years  later  (in  1890)  established  a 
school  at  Cape  Prince  of  Wales  in  the  far  North.  "Already 
a  Christian  mart.yr  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  work.  The 
most  westerly  point  of  land  over  which  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  float  is  occupied  by  this  mission-school.  The 
Eskimos,  eager  for  instruction,  crowd  the  building  night 
and  day,  or  rather  during  the  twenty-four  hours,  as  the 
days  are  scarcely  divided  by  fight  and  darkness.  It  was 
found  necessary  to  turn  away  pupils,  who  insisted  on 
coming  so  continuously  that  the  teachers  found  no 
opportunity  for  rest."  *  Four  missionaries,  two  of  them 
native  Eskimos,  are  carrying  on  this  work. 

The  Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society  in 
connection  with  the  Sunday-school  Society  entered 
Alaska  in  1899,  at  Douglas,  across  the  channel  from 
Juneau.  Here  was  the  greatest  stamp-mill  in  the  world, 
and  2,000  people  with  no  church.  "At  Douglas,"  said 
the  missionary,  "we  hunted  about  for  a  suitable  room 
and  found  nothing  but  a  dance-hall;  but  we  hired  it.  The 
'  Secretary  C.  J.  Ryder. 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  251 

First  Congregational  Church  was  born  in  that  dance-hall 
three  months  later.  There  on  a  table  where  the  miners 
were  wont  to  gamble  we  spread  the  snowy  cloth  and 
broke  the  emblems  of  our  Lord.  After  nine  months  we 
dedicated  a  beautiful  church  edifice,  the  finest  in  Alaska, 
valued,  with  the  lots,  at  $5,000." 

Leaving  H.  Hammond  Cole  at  this  point.  General 
Missionary  Wirt  went  over  the  White  Pass  and  down  the 
Yukon  to  St.  Michael's,,  on  the  south  shore  of  Norton 
Sound.  Crossing  to  the  north  shore  he  came  to  historic 
Nome.  It  was  a  time  of  intense  mining  excitement. 
From  three  to  five  thousand  men  were  digging  treasure 
out  of  the  sands  along  the  beach.  An  epidemic  of  fever 
was  over  the  camp.  Men  were  sick  and  dying  without 
help.  The  people  hailed  the  coming  of  the  mission- 
ary, raised  money  for  a  hospital,  church,  and  reading- 
room  combined,  and  in  a  few  weeks  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  patients  had  been  received  and  cared  for,  a 
church  of  forty-one  members,  thirty-five  of  them  men, 
had  been  organized,  which  assumed  self-support  almost 
from  the  start,  and  a  valuable  library  had  been  gathered 
for  the  free  use  of  the  camp. 

At  Valdez,  on  Copper  River,  the  Endeavor  Mission 
Church  was  organized  in  1900.  Rev.  D.  W.  Cram  and 
wife,  both  ardent  Christian  Endeavorers,  gave  it  this 
prophetic  name,  up  to  which  the  church  is  aiming  to  five. 
In  response  to  this  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  people,  Chris- 
tian Endeavor  Societies  of  the  North  and  West  have 
contributed  largely  to  its  support.  Valdez  holds  an 
important  position,  is  growing  rapidly,  and  promises  to 
be  one  of  the  largest  if  not  the  very  largest  town  in  new 
Alaska. 

Thus  following  the  lead  of  the  Presbyterians  of  1877, 


252  Leavening  the  Nation 

Baptists,  Congregationalists,  Episcopalians,  Methodists, 
and  Moravians  working  together  in  perfect  harmony  have 
raised  the  missionary  standard  in  the  great  Northwest. 
It  is  the  last  Northwest  in  American  history.  That 
name,  beginning  in  Vermont,  was  passed  on  to  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin,  was  transmitted  later  to  Montana, 
Idaho,  and  Washington,  and  ends  its  career  in  Alaska, 
the  latest  and  the  only  real  Northwest  Territory.  How 
soon,  with  its  strange  mixture  of  races,  it  will  be  fit  for 
Statehood,  only  a  wise  prophet  would  venture  to  predict; 
but  that  day  is  as  sure  to  come  as  it  has  come  in  New 
Mexico  and  Oklahoma;  as  it  came  in  IlHnois  and  In- 
diana, which  at  one  time  seemed  further  from  Statehood 
than  Alaska  seems  to-day.  The  fitness  of  Alaska  for 
such  promotion  will  not  rest  alone  upon  its  wealth  or  its 
population;  it  must  be  determined  by  the  intelligence, 
the  education,  and  the  moral  stabiHty  of  its  people. 
These  are  the  factors  which  make  States  worthy  of  a 
place  in  the  American  Union,  and  these  conditions  are 
being  created  and  are  to  be  suppUed  in  ever-growing 
measure  by  the  agency  of  organized  home  missions. 

Cuba. — The  echo  of  the  last  gun  of  the  Spanish- Ameri- 
can War  had  hardly  died  away  before  the  Congregational 
Home  Missionary  Society  sent  two  delegates  to  the 
island  to  inquire  into  its  moral  and  religious  needs, 
Cuba  was  not  American  soil,  but  only  the  temporary 
ward  of  the  United  States.  Hence  the  charter  of  the 
Society  was  amended  by  the  legislature  of  New  York  to 
include  in  its  field  the  "West  Indies."  Dr.  J.  D.  Kings- 
bury and  Rev.  E.  P.  Herrick  landed  in  Cuba  in  January, 
1899.  They  came  as  spies  of  an  unknown  country. 
Some  foregieams  of  the  situation  had  reached  them 
through  the  Society's  Cuban  Mission  in  Tampa,  but  their 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  253 

reception  exceeded  every  hope  or  expectation  and  over- 
whelmed them  with  grateful  surprise. 

Before  leaving  the  steamer  at  Havana,  they  were  wel- 
comed by  a  httle  company  who  "almost  carried  them  in 
their  arms  to  a  still  larger  number  at  the  landing  who 
expressed  their  joy  in  words  of  no  uncertain  sound." 
In  their  intercourse  with  the  people,  these  visiting  breth- 
ren soon  discovered  that  the  Cuban  population,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  Spanish,  were  in  a  state  of  radical 
revolt  from  the  Cathohc  Church  and  its  priesthood. 
Wrongs  and  abuses  long  endured  and  insolently  inflicted 
had  produced  a  natural  reaction,  and  the  people  in  their 
distress  were  driven  directly  to  God  for  the  sympathy 
and  help  denied  by  their  spiritual  leaders.  This  was  the 
almost  universal  sentiment. 

In  the  higher  circles  of  society  the  fact  of  this  revolt 
was  clearly  recognized.  Professors  in  Havana  Univer- 
sity confessed  without  reserve:  "If  Protestantism  can 
be  known  it  will  be  received;  the  way  is  open.  The 
crimes  of  the  priests  are  known;  they  can  never  be  for- 
gotten; humanity  revolts.  The  Cubans  welcome  Prot- 
estants; their  religion  is  hke  American  statesmanship, 
like  American  civihzation,  or  American  war;  it  is  for  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  The  people  are  disgusted  with 
the  customs,  the  duplicity,  the  selfishness,  the  lusts  of 
the  priests.  They  fear  them  no  longer.  The  Spaniard 
is  the  worst  man  on  earth  and  the  priest  is  the  worst 
Spaniard." 

The  mayor  of  Havana,  a  Cuban  patriot,  gave  them 
a  hearty  reception.  "You  will  be  welcomed  by  my 
people.  You  give  and  do  not  receive.  The  Catholics  do 
the  opposite.  Your  mission  is  like  your  generous  people, 
and  though  I  am  a  Catholic,  I  give  you  a  hearty  and 


254  Leavening  the  Nation 

sincere  welcome.  If  I  can  aid  you  with  letters  of  intro- 
duction or  in  any  way  I  shall  be  most  happy." 

At  Matanzas  the  same  signs  of  interest  and  the  same 
hearty  welcome  were  experienced.  At  Bolondron,  Dr. 
Kingsbury  was  met  by  the  mayor  of  the  city  and  the 
city  officials  with  a  brass  band  playing  welcome  music. 
Three  little  flower-girls  in  white  presented  him  flowers. 
A  throng  of  people  escorted  him  to  a  place  of  meeting 
where,  after  a  sumptuous  breakfast,  a  ser\dce  was  held, 
and  the  freedom  and  largeness  of  the  Protestant  faith 
were  explained.  The  people  responded,  "That  is  the 
religion  we  want."  Said  Dr.  Kingsbury,  "I  could 
have  organized  a  church  of  a  hundred  members  that 
day." 

At  Guanabacoa,  Mr.  Herrick  was  enjoying  a  similar 
experience.  "  Editors,  lawyers,  teachers,  and  cultivated 
people  made  up  the  audience.  They  expressed  a  great 
satisfaction  in  hearing  of  the  '  Uberty  religion,'  and  in- 
sisted upon  having  another  meeting."  At  Gienfuegos,  a 
city  editor  had  published  Mr.  Herrick's  tract  setting 
forth  the  simple  articles  of  Protestant  faith,  and  the 
priest  had  cursed  the  delegation  in  his  church, — which 
made  the  people  smile.  A  public  hall  was  secured,  and 
at  the  last  meeting  there  were  two  hundred  present  and 
great  enthusiasm  was  manifested. 

Perhaps  no  missionary  journey  since  the  days  of  the 
apostles  was  ever  more  significant  or  successful.  Cuba 
was  wide  open  to  American  Home  Missions,  and  almost 
unentered.  The  Baptists,  under  Rev.  Mr.  Diaz,  were 
established  in  Havana  with  a  church  of  some  2,000  mem- 
bers. In  the  province  of  Santiago  they  have  also  twelve 
points,  at  San  Luis  two  points,  and  the  same  number  in 
Puerto  Principe.    Christians  and  Episcopalians  have  ob- 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  255 

tained  a  footing,  and  very  recently  Presbyterians  have 
opened  work  at  three  points  on  the  island. 

The  result  of  this  visit  was  the  appointment  of  Mr. 
Herrick  to  take  up  his  residence  in  Cuba  and  to  open 
missionary  work  in  Havana.  In  this  endeavor  he  was 
assisted  by  J.  M.  Lopez,  then  pastor  of  the  Spanish- 
American  Church  in  Brooklyn,  who  spent  several  months 
on  the  island.  The  Brooklyn  church  and  the  Cuban 
church  at  Tampa  furnished  a  hopeful  nucleus  in  large 
numbers  of  their  membership  who  returned  to  Cuba 
after  the  declaration  of  peace.  The  Central  Church  in 
Havana  opened  with  a  charter  membership  of  130, 
which  has  grown  to  nearly  200,  with  a  Sunday-school  of 
over  200,  and  a  Christian  Endeavor  Society  of  seventy 
members. 

Rev.  A.  De  Barritt,  after  successful  labor  at  Vedado,  a 
suburb  of  Havana,  was  established  at  Cienfuegos,  where 
he  has  built  up  a  large  congregation.  Mr.  Herrick  was  suc- 
seeded  at  Havana  by  G.  L.  Todd,  a  Massachusetts  pastor, 
while  he  himself  went  on  to  Matanzas  to  open  a  hopeful 
work  in  that  city.  Charles  W.  Frazer  was  transferred 
from  Key  West,  where  his  ministry  was  greatly  blessed, 
to  Guanajay,  a  Cuban  city  of  9,000,  where  he  is  laying 
foundations  for  an  important  church.  At  San  Antonio 
De  Los  Banos,  a  city  of  13,000,  a  successful  church  has 
been  instituted  by  C.  S.  Ventosa,  a  native  Cuban.  At 
Guanabacoa,  four  miles  from  Havana,  with  a  population 
of  15,000,  H.  B.  Someillan,  another  native  Cuban,  is 
pastor  over  a  church  which  began  with  twenty-five 
members  and  is  rapidly  increasing.  No  other  Protes- 
tant organization  is  on  the  ground. 

These  are  the  beginnings  of  a  new  work,  and  in  all  the 
years  of  home-missionary  history,  even  in  the  early  days 


256  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  the  West,  no  warmer  welcome  was  ever  given  to  the 
gospel,  and  no  brighter  promise  ever  cheered  the  hearts 
of  the  workers.  Eleven  Protestant  denominations  are 
now  established  on  the  island.  In  a  field  so  broad,  with 
needs  so  overwhelming,  conflict  is  impossible.  Twenty- 
five  cities  and  towns  are  occupied  with  thirty-one  central 
stations  and  fifty  outstations.  Sixty-one  pastors  and 
teachers  and  fifty-eight  other  workers  make  up  the 
missionary  force.  There  are  seven  church  edifices,  with 
a  combined  value  of  $150,000  and  a  church  membership 
of  nearly  3,000.  Sixteen  young  men  are  preparing  for 
the  ministry ;  sixty-five  Sunday-schools,  with  over  3,000 
children  and  more  than  200  teachers,  are  connected  with 
the  missions,  and  several  of  the  denominations  support 
day-schools  as  well. 

Not  only  is  this  work  conducted  on  lines  of  Christian 
comity,  but  provision  is  made  to  let  brotherly  love  con- 
tinue. At  the  first  Evangelical  Conference  ever  held  in 
Cuba,  Feb.  20,  1902,  it  was  resolved  almost  unanimously 
that  wherever  one  denomination  is  holding  regular 
services  in  a  town  of  6,000  people  or  less,  no  other  denomi- 
nation shall  enter  for  work,  and  that  two  denominations 
may  hold  a  town  of  15,000  or  less.*  Rev.  George  L.  Todd 
of  Havana,  in  reporting  this  historical  conference,  adds : 
"The  mayor  of  the  city  (Cienfuegos)  was  unable  to  be 
present,  but  his  assistant  came  as  his  substitute.  His 
address  was  a  hearty  welcome  and  wonderfully  well  de- 
livered, brimming  full  of  good  thought  and  choice  ex- 
pression. Among  other  things,  he  said  that  previous  to 
American  occupation  it  would  have  been  impossible  for 
a  layman  hke  himself  to  have  spoken  at  a  religious 

*  Home  Missionary,  April,  1902,  p.  317. 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  257 

gathering.  This  gathering  marks  the  freedom  which 
we  now  enjoy  without  the  fear  of  physical  harm  or  social 
ostracism." 

When  in  the  logic  of  events  the  "Gem  of  the  Antilles '' 
shall  become  an  integral  part  of  the  United  States,  as 
many  beheve  it  must,  it  will  owe  its  freedom  from  Span- 
ish tyranny  to  the  intervention  of  the  American  Govern- 
ment. But  its  fitness  for  a  place  in  the  enlightened, 
liberty-loving  family  of  American  commonwealths  will 
be  chiefly  due  to  two  forces — free  public  education  and 
home-missionary  culture. 

Porto  Rico. — At  the  opening  of  the  Spanish- American 
War  httle  was  said  or  thought  of  Porto  Rico.  Cuba  and 
her  wrongs  was  the  burning  question.  Yet  not  far  away 
in  the  same  seas  was  an  island  nearly  half  as  large  as  the 
State  of  Massachusetts,  as  Spanish  as  Cuba,  and  the 
victim  of  Spanish  misrule  for  nearly  four  centuries. 
It  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the  American  army  under  Gen- 
eral Miles  in  1898;  indeed,  it  appeared  more  than  glad 
to  surrender  to  the  United  States. 

Simultaneously  with  the  visit  of  Dr.  Kingsbury  and 
Mr.  Herrick  to  Cuba,  a  delegation  from  the  American 
Missionary  Association,  consisting  of  Dr.  A.  F.  Beard 
and  Dr.  W.  H.  Ward,  sailed  for  Porto  Rico  to  explore  its 
needs  with  reference  to  missionary  work.  They  found 
a  population  of  900,000,  about  equally  divided  between 
whites  and  colored.  Only  100,000  of  the  people  can  read, 
and  of  these  less  than  15,000  can  also  write. 

The  delegation  made  a  very  complete  tour  of  the  island. 
Says  Dr.  Beard:  "We  visited  many  schools  in  many 
places.  With  one  exception,  we  found  no  buildings  con- 
structed and  set  apart  for  educational  use.  Public 
schools  are  in  private  houses.     In  many  towns  the  Span- 


258  Leavening  the  Nation 

lards  had  substantial  buildings  for  the  miUtary  which 
kept  the  people  down,  but  no  schoolhouses.  Seldom 
did  we  find  in  any  schools  desks,  and  there  were  only 
backless  benches.  One  reading-book  sufficed  for  a  class, 
being  passed  from  one  pupil  to  another.  The  schools  are 
ungraded  and  but  a  small  portion  of  the  pupils  get  be- 
yond reading  and  writing  and  these  pupils  are  among 
the  exceptional  few." 

"We  found  churches,"  says  Dr.  Beard,  "but  no  people 
in  them.  Here  is  the  church  which  for  400  years  has 
had  an  unhindered  opportunity,  and  here  is  the  fruitage. 
In  our  sense  of  the  word  home,  there  are  none  among 
the  masses  of  the  people  of  Porto  Rico."  These  visiting 
brethren  were  the  first  to  make  anything  hke  an  exhaus- 
tive study  of  the  island  in  the  interest  of  home  missions ; 
but  they  found  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association 
represented  in  San  Juan  by  "a  capable  minister"  labor- 
ing among  the  United  States  soldiers.  A  large  theater 
had  been  secured  in  the  city  for  rehgious  services,  which 
were  well  attended,  and  where  sermons  were  preached 
in  Spanish  and  Enghsh. 

To  the  question  "  What  does  Porto  Rico  most  need?  "4 
Dr.  Beard's  answer  is  comprehensively  given — "Salva- 
tion. But  anyone  can  see  it  is  not  enough  to  preach 
against  such  darkness  at  this.  Righteousness  needs 
knowledge  as  much  as  knowledge  needs  righteousness. 
The  hope  for  the  Christianity  of  these  people  in  the  gen- 
erations to  come  must  be  through  Christian  schools: 
schools  with  earnest  Christian  teachers  in  different  cen- 
ters, schools  where  the  Bible  shall  be  the  first  lesson  of 
every  day;  schools  furnished  with  modern  appointments 
and  appliances,  graded  and  supplied  with  text-books, 
not  catechisms;  schools  that  shall  be  object-lessons  to  the 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  259 

people,  while  experienced  teachers  in  their  home  Ufe 
shall  also  show  how  homes  are  to  be  made  the  centers 
of  refining  and  civiUzing  influence." 

The  same  eager  welcome  from  the  people  was  met  in 
Porto  Rico  as  in  Cuba,  although  the  readiness  for  church 
life  is  not  as  marked  in  the  former  as  in  the  latter.  But 
the  need  of  churches  is  even  greater.  The  people  are 
practically  without  churches  and  must  be  made  ready- 
by  education  to  feel  their  need  and  their  blessing. 

The  return  of  Drs.  Beard  and  Ward  and  their  report 
on  the  situation  were  followed  by  prompt  action  on  the 
part  of  the  Association,  seconded  by  earnest  appeals  and 
ready  contributions  from  the  churches.  In  a  few  months 
schools  had  been  opened  at  Santurce,  a  suburb  of  San 
Juan,  and  at  Lares  in  the  mountain  region.  Congrega- 
tional churches  were  established  at  Fajardo,  Humacoa, 
and  Lares,  where  old  people,  middle-aged  and  youth 
crowd  the  services  and  httle  children  fill  the  Sunday- 
schools,  The  Association  has  at  the  present  time  a 
force  of  seven  American  teachers  divided  between 
Santurce  and  Lares,  with  300  enrolled  scholars.  Great 
eagerness  is  manifested  on  the  part  of  the  children,  and 
willingness  to  help  on  the  part  of  the  people.  "The 
children  prove  themselves  about  as  bright  as  American 
children,  quick  in  their  perceptions,  with  good  memories, 
weak  in  arithmetic,  not  good  thinkers  or  reasoners."  * 
One  great  need  is  that  of  practical  industrial  education 
to  teach  these  people  how  to  do  something,  of  which  they 
are  now  helplessly  ignorant.  The  next  step  of  the  Asso- 
ciation will  be  to  open  industrial  schools, 

Presbyterians  entered  Porto  Rico  in  the  summer  of 

»Prof.  C.  B  Scott. 


26o  Leavening  the  Nation 

1899,  at  Mayaguez,  organizing  their  first  church  of  eleven 
in  April  of  the  following  year.  From  this  as  a  center, 
M.  E.  Caldwell  and  his  assistant,  J.  W.  James,  reach  out 
with  services  to  four  neighboring  towns.  Two  schools 
have  been  opened  at  Mayaguez,  with  seventy  enrolled 
scholars.  At  Aguadella,  in  a  population  of  8,000,  a  church 
of  sixty-two  members  was  gathered  in  Feb.,  1901,  and  the 
pastor,  J.  L.  Underwood,  holds  services  at  five  neighbor- 
ing outstations.  Here  also  is  a  school  of  fifty  pupils. 
The  Presbyterian  Church  of  San  Juan  was  organized  in 
1900  by  Dr.  J.  M.  Greene,  and  a  building  was  erected  in 
the  same  year  at  a  cost  of  $7,000 — the  first  Protestant 
church  building  in  Porto  Rico.  "After  less  than  three 
years,"  says  Dr.  Doyle,  ''we  have  in  Porto  Rico  to-day 
three  organized  churches,  eight  missionaries,  a  dozen 
outstations,  four  schools,  eight  teachers,  and  a  medical 
mission — a  most  creditable  work  for  the  time  in  which  it 
has  been  wrought."  ^  Besides  the  CongregationaUsts 
and  Presbyterians,  the  Baptists  have  two  American 
ladies  devoting  part  of  their  time  to  teaching,  and  the 
Christian  Church  has  a  school  at  San  Juan  with  three 
teachers  from  the  States. 

Yet  before  any  of  these  figures  shall  be  published  they 
may  all  need  revision.  The  Porto-Rican  work  is  in  its 
earhest  stages;  the  opportunity  is  unbounded,  the  need 
immeasurable.  Present  investments  might  be  doubled 
and  trebled  within  the  next  twelve  months  without  the 
slightest  fear  of  waste.  No  more  ideal  missionary  field 
was  ever  opened  to  the  American  churches  than  Cuba 
and  Porto  Rico.  If  these  islands  were  on  the  other  side 
of  the  globe  their  need  atid  promise  would  thrill  Ameri- 

*  "Presbyterian  Home  Missions,"  p.  257. 


Alaska,  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  261 

can  Christians.  They  are  at  our  doors ;  and  nearness  is 
a  severe  test  of  missionary  zeal.  Since  after  long  years 
of  protest  our  Government  has  been  moved  at  length  to 
end  the  intolerable  oppression  of  Spanish  rule,  shall  not 
the  Christian  churches  of  America  hasten  to  set  its 
victims  free  from  the  heavier  bondage  of  ignorance  and 
superstition? 


XVII 

HOME    MISSIONS    AND    THE    IMMIGRANT 
PROBLEM 

To  realize  the  nature  of  the  problem  some  of  its  amaz- 
ing conditions  should  be  understood.  At  the  opening 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  a  territory  of  less  than  a 
milUon  square  miles,  were  Uving  about  4,000,000  people 
substantially  of  one  blood.  Fifty  years  later,  in  1850, 
the  national  area  had  trebled  in  extent,  and  popula- 
tion had  multiplied  nearly  eight  times.  Still  we  were 
substantially  people  of  one  blood.  Up  to  1840  the 
total  immigration  from  all  quarters  had  not  exceeded 
half  a  million.     Then  began  the  flood. 

During  the  next  thirty  years  we  took  in  about  6,000,- 
000  foreigners.  Driven  on  the  one  hand  by  famines  and 
oppressions  at  home;  drawn  on  the  other  by  the  de- 
mands of  labor  in  a  new  and  rapidly  developing  country; 
by  hberal  homestead  laws  and  cheap  transportation; 
they  came  and  continued  coming, — every  comer  making 
himself  an  agent  to  bring  others,  and  sending  home 
money  for  the  passage, — until  for  continuous  years,  at 
Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore,  and  New 
Orleans,  immigrants  were  arriving  at  a  rate  from  500  to 
1,000  every  day.  They  were  mostly  Cathohcs  from 
Ireland,  and  the  burden  thus  suddenly  thrown  upon 

the  American   GathoUc   Church   was   heavier  than   it 

262 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  263 

could  well  rarry.  The  sudden  lifting  of  old-world 
restraints  was  so  relaxing  in  its  effects  that  thousands 
of  good  Cathohcs  were  at  this  tinie  lost  to  the  Church, 
which  was  not  as  ready  then  as  it  became  at  a  later 
period  to  receive  and  care  for  them.  This  was  specially 
true  outside  of  large  cities,  and  it  has  been  estimated 
by  a  Cathohc  authority  that  at  least  20,000,000  people 
have  been  lost  to  the  Church  through  its  unprepared- 
ness  to  shepherd  them  during  those  rushing  days  of  im- 
migration. 

Next  in  volume  to  the  Irish  was  the  German  invasion, 
very  Httle  of  it  Catholic,  but  chiefly  Lutheran,  so  far  as 
it  was  reUgious  at  all.  This  element  gravitating  quite 
generally  to  the  West  so  strengthened  the  Lutheran 
church  that  from  being  one  of  the  least  it  has  become  one 
of  the  foremost  Protestant  communions,  outnumbering 
in  Chicago  the  Methodist,  Presbyterian,  and  Episco- 
pal combined.  The  virtues  of  the  German  are  conceded 
and  have  been  aheady  enumerated;  yet  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  Germany  has  contributed  not  a  small  share 
of  unbeheving,  irreligious,  and  non-churchgoing  people 
to  American  society. 

Up  to  this  time,  aside  from  the  Irish  and  the  German, 
there  was  httle  to  attract  attention  and  nothing  to  excite 
real  alarm,  although  great  fears  were  felt  and  some  fool- 
ish things  were  said  and  done.  It  is  only  in  recent  years 
that  new,  more  ignorant,  and  therefore  more  dangerous 
elements  have  entered  into  the  problem  of  immigration. 
Its  volume  has  greatly  increased.  Between  1865  and 
1885  more  than  7,000,000  were  added  to  our  foreign  pop- 
ulation, which  is  to  say  that  in  these  twenty  years  for- 
eign immigration  exceeded  that  of  the  entire  previous 
record  of  the  country.     Its  quality  too,  had  not  im- 


264  Leavening  the  Nation 

proved.  The  Irish  and  German  tides  were  ebbing,  while 
those  of  Southern  and  Eastern  Europe  were  both  in- 
creasing and  threatening. 

Coming  down  to  present-day  conditions,  the  latest  and 
best  authority  upon  this  important  problem  is  the  census 
of  1900.*  The  present  total  population  of  the  United 
States,  exclusive  of  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippines,  is 
76,303,387,  of  which  10,460,085,  or  13.7  per  cent,  are  for- 
eign born,  while  15,738,854  were  born  in  America  of 
foreign  parents.  These  latter,  while  classed  in  the 
census  as  "native  born,"  are  foreign  by  descent,  and  dis- 
tinctly foreign  by  environment,  at  least  in  their  homes. 
The  two  together  constitute  more  than  one  third  of  the 
population  of  the  country.  These  foreign  elements  are 
found  mainly  in  the  Northern  States.  In  the  Northeast- 
ern section,  including  New  England,  New  York,  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  Delaware,  more  than  one  half  the  population 
may  claim  to  be  of  foreign  birth  or  parentage.  North 
Dakota  has  proportionally  the  largest  foreign  popu- 
lation of  any  single  State,  the  per  cent,  being  77.5. 
Minnesota  and  Wisconsin  come  next,  then  Rhode  Island 
and  Massachusetts. 

It  has  long  been  a  common  belief  that  the  foreign  ele- 
ment gravitates  heavily  towards  the  cities,  a  beUef  that 
is  abundantly  verified  by  the  latest  facts.  There  are  160 
cities  in  the  United  States  having  each  a  population  of  at 
least  25,000  and  an  aggregate  of  19,718,312.  They 
contain  more  than  one  fourth  of  the  entire  population, 
and  of  this  number  53.7  per  cent,  more  than  one  half  are 
foreign  born  or  of  foreign  parentage.     In  this  sense  it  is 

*  For  many  of  the  following  facts  the  writer  is  indebted  to  the 
summaries  published  by  F.  H.  Wines,  Assistant  Director  of  the 
United  States  Census. 


Ai.vi  Tabor  Twing,  D.D. 

Secretary    for    Domestic    Missions    of    the    Protestant    Episcopal 

Church  from  1866  to  1882. 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  265 

true,  as  believed  and  often  declared,  that  "American 
cities  are  more  foreign  than  American." 

In  several  of  the  larger  cities  the  proportion  is  even 
more  significant.  Chicago  has  but  383,285  native-born 
American  inhabitants  as  against  1,315,307  of  foreign 
birth  or  parentage,  that  is,  three  fourths,  or  76.9  per 
cent,  of  foreign  stock.  Milwaukee  and  Detroit  are  even 
more  foreign  than  Chicago,  the  former  having  82.7  per 
cent,  and  the  latter  77.5  per  cent,  while  New  York, 
Cleveland,  and  San  Francisco  are  not  far  behind.  Fol- 
lowing them  come  Buffalo,  St.  Paul,  Boston,  Jersey  City, 
Minneapohs,  Newark,  Rochester,  Providence,  Pitts- 
burg, St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  Toledo,  and  Philadelphia;  all 
of  them  with  a  population  exceeding  100,000,  more  than 
one  half  of  which  is  of  ahen  blood.  Thus  in  all  these 
chief  cities  of  the  land  the  foreign  elements  hold  not 
only  the  balance  of  power  but  an  absolute  majority  of 
the  citizens. 

An  instructive  feature  of  the  problem  is  the  source  of 
our  foreign  populations.  Great  Britain,  including  Can- 
ada, furnishes  34-5  per  cent,  or  more  than  one  third  of  the 
whole.  England,  Germany,  and  Ireland  together  supply 
about  one  half.  During  the  last  decade,  not  only  has 
the  volume  of  immigration  declined  but  its  character 
has  perceptibly  changed.  Between  1880  and  1890,  immi- 
grants from  abroad  numbered  5,246,613;  between  1890 
and  1900,  3,687,564,  of  which  Eastern  and  Southern 
Europe  furnished  the  chief  proportion,^  Emigrants 
from  Russia,  Poland,  Austria,  Hungary,  and  Italy  have 
doubled  within  ten  years.    There  is  also  an  observable 

Since  1900  the  tide  of  foreign  immigration  has  turned  from 
ebb  to  flood,  stimulated  by  the  unparalleled  prosperity  of  the 
United  States. 


266  Leavening  the  Nation 

tendency  among  foreign  elements  to  distribute  them- 
selves by  nationalities.  Two  thirds  of  the  Irish  remain 
in  the  East;  two  thirds  of  the  Germans  go  West;  more 
than  three  fourths  of  our  Scandinavians  are  found  in  the 
West  and  Northwest,  while  Russians,  Poles,  Hungari- 
ans, and  Italians  are  chiefly  found  in  New  England,  New 
York,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  Bohemians  and  Hollanders 
in  the  Central  West. 

The  effect  of  this  vast  infusion  of  foreign  blood  into 
the  moral,  social,  and  political  life  of  America,  is  at  once 
a  fascinating  and  a  baffling  study.  None  but  an  opti- 
mist of  the  purest  water  can  view  it  without  concern. 
Happily,  we  are  able  to  count  upon  our  British,  German, 
and  Scandinavian  people  for  substantial  sympathy  with 
American  theories  of  government.  These  have  all  stood 
side  by  side  with  our  own  brothers  and  sons  for  the 
defence  of  the  Union.  They  generally  believe  also,  in 
popular  education  and  in  Christian  civilization.  Among 
them  are  certain  imported  ideals  and  customs  which  are 
un-American,  and  certainly  anti-Puritan,  and  their  esti- 
mate of  the  Sabbath  as  a  holy  day  we  would  be  glad  to 
see  amended ;  still  it  would  be  easy  to  imagine  worse  and 
more  perilous  evils  than  these. 

Of  the  Irish  contingent,  and  much  of  that  from  South- 
ern Europe,  under  control  of  the  Catholic  Church,  our 
hopes  are  fed  and  our  fears  quieted  by  the  unquestioned 
Americanizing  of  that  Church,  amounting  almost  to 
revolution,  until  it  presents  a  constantly  growing  contrast 
to  the  Roman  Catholicism  of  the  Old  World.  And  this 
tendency,  we  are  led  to  believe,  must  increase  rather  than 
grow  less  under  our  system  of  free  education.  But  that 
ignorance  and  crime  have  increased  with  foreign  emi- 
gration, and  as  a  result  of  it;  that  dangerous  classes  of 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  267 

alien  descent  threaten  all  that  is  good;  that  intemper- 
ance, moral  contagion,  and  corruption  of  youth,  with 
socialism  and  anarchy  have  come  to  us  from  over  the 
sea,  and  enter  dangerously  into  the  social,  moral,  and 
pohtical  hfe  of  the  nation — none  but  the  blind  will  deny, 
and  only  the  utterly  fatuous  will  lightly  esteem. 

How  to  correct,  enhghten,  and  assimilate,  is  the  com- 
plex problem.  The  only  remedy  for  darkness  is  light. 
The  supreme  corrective  of  low  ideals  and  evil  practices 
is  the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  God,  which  when  accepted 
"breaks  the  shackles  of  hierarchy,  develops  individ- 
uality, inculcates  reverence  for  law  and  order,  secures 
the  sanctity  of  the  Sabbath,"  ^  and  transforms  formalists 
and  infidels  into  patriotic  and  Christian  citizens. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  immigrant  problem,  when 
it  was  sanely  comprehended,  revolutionized  the  appeal  of 
home  missions.  Hitherto  that  appeal  came  from  our 
own  people,  and  often  from  our  own  kin.  To  follow 
close  after  them  on  the  western  trail,  and  to  stand  with 
them  in  planting  the  church  and  the  school  in  their  in- 
fant settlements,  was  the  whole  of  home  missions. 
While  that  feature  has  never  lost  its  claim,  and  never 
will,  another  claim  has  divided  the  attention  and  con- 
cern of  the  churches.  To  the  peril  of  domestic  heathen- 
ism has  been  joined  the  larger  fear  of  imported  barbar- 
ism, and  thus  for  many  years  foreign  missions  at  home 
has  been  a  distinct  interest  of  organized  American  home 
missions. 

No  one  denomination,  so  far  as  the  record  shows,  can 
claim  distinct  precedence  in  originating  this  work.  The 
alarm  was  sudden  and  the  response  simultaneous.     In 

*  H.  L.  Morehouse,  "  Baptist  Home  Missions,  Jubilee  Volume," 
p.  409. 


268  Leavening  the  Nation 

1883  the  American  Home  Missionary  Society  organized 
its  three  foreign  departments,  appointing  expert  super- 
intendents over  each,  not,  however,  to  inaugurate  work 
among  foreign-speaking  people,  but  to  organize,  under 
special  direction,  a  work  which  for  some  years  had  been 
in  progress.  The  three  immigrant  classes  to  be  bene- 
fited by  this  arrangement  were  the  German,  the  Scandi- 
navian, and  the  Slavic. 

Rev.  Geo.  E.  Albrecht,  first  appointed  Superintendent 
of  the  German  department,  was  soon  called  away  to  for- 
eign missionary  work  in  Japan  and  was  succeeded  by 
Dr.  M.  E.  Eversz,  who  continues  in  charge  to  the  present 
time.  Under  his  skillful  direction  140  German  churches 
have  been  gathered,  with  twenty-one  missions  not  yet 
organized  into  churches,  all  of  them  cared  for  by  less 
than  eighty  missionaries.  Over  700  were  added  to  these 
churches  the  last  year,  and  their  total  membership  ex- 
ceeds 6,000,  while  their  Sunday-school  attendance  ap- 
proaches 7,000.  Something  of  the  genuineness  of  their 
church  life  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  these 
6,000  Christian  Germans  gave  in  benevolence  during  the 
last  twelve  months  more  than  $6,000,  not  including  in 
any  case  money  raised  for  church  buildings  or  ministerial 
support.  There  is  enough  in  such  figures  to  dispel  the 
doubt,  if  it  exists,  as  to  the  possibility  of  converting  the 
German  into  an  American  Christian,  in  no  way  distin- 
guishable in  character  from  the  Puritan  immigrant  of 
New  England.  Wilton  College,  Iowa,  and  the  German 
department  of  Chicago  Theological  Seminary  are  the 
educational  outcome  of  this  work,  and  are  supplying 
trained  preachers  to  carry  it  on.  '^Der  Kirchebote"  (a 
church  paper)  and  "Die  Segensquelle "  (the  children's 
paper)  are  contributing  to  the  education  of  the  churches. 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  269 

and  a  German  Hymnal  has  served  to  enrich  their  wor- 
ship. The  policy  of  the  Society,  in  all  its  foreign- American 
work,  is  to  make  it  ultimately  American  and  not  foreign. 
This  cannot  be  done  at  once;  so  long  as  foreign  immigra- 
tion continues  to  bring  new  thousands  every  month, 
they  must  hear  the  gospel  in  their  mother  tongue  or 
never  at  aU.  There  is  a  tendency  among  the  children  of 
the  first  generation  to  graduate  from  the  foreign-speak- 
ing to  the  American  church,  and  such  a  trend  is  dis- 
tinctly encouraged;  but  while  their  places  are  being 
filled  by  fresh  arrivals  from  the  Old  World,  the  necessity 
of  foreign  preaching  continues,  and  "the  method  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,"  as  Dr.  Morehouse 
happily  remarks,  "is  the  safe  and  wise  one  still  to  fol- 
low— to  give  the  gospel  to  every  man  in  his  own  tongue 
wherein  he  was  born." 

The  Slavic  department  has  been  from  the  beginning 
under  the  charge  of  Dr.  H.  A.  Schauffler  of  Cleveland, 
whose  early  training  as  a  missionary  of  the  American 
Board  in  Austria  fitted  him  for  eminent  success.  Under 
his  wise  and  devoted  care  work  has  been  opened  at 
twenty-eight  points  in  nine  different  States.  Twenty 
missionaries  are  under  commission,  having  organized 
sixteen  churches  with  a  membership  of  773,  and  sixty- 
two  Sunday-schools  with  a  membership  of  2,000;  aver- 
age attendance  upon  preaching  services  is  1,204,  and  on 
other  meetings  and  Simday-schools,  2,735.  Missionary 
contributions  for  the  past  year  were  $860;  visits  and 
calls  made  by  missionaries  18,718;  Bibles  and  New 
Testaments  circulated  to  the  number  of  498,  and  pages 
of  tracts  distributed,  130,000.  In  the  Oberhn  Slavic 
Department,  and  in  the  Cleveland  Bible  Training  School 
are  sixteen  pupils  being  trained  for  the  work,  and  nearly 


270  Leavening  the  Nation 

all  the  workers  in  the  field,  several  of  them  devoted 
young  native  women,  have  been  fitted  in  one  or  the  other 
of  these  schools  for  efficient  service.  Simultaneously 
with  the  organization  of  Bethlehem  Church  at  Cleve- 
land, a  Bohemian  Church  of  the  same  name  was  organ- 
ized by  Dr.  E,  A.  Adams  in  Chicago,  with  a  present  mem- 
bership of  120. 

"Prior  to  1822,  there  were  in  the  whole  United  States 
three  Bohemian  Protestant  ministers, — one  in  the  East, 
one  in  the  West,  and  one  in  the  South."  *  For  many 
years  nothing  was  done  to  meet  the  spiritual  needs  of 
this  interesting  people,  until  the  lamented  Rev.  Chas. 
Terry  CoUins  of  Cleveland  called  pubhc  attention  to 
their  condition.  Under  that  impulse  the  Bohemian 
Mission  Board  of  Cleveland  was  organized,  and  a  mis- 
sionary work  begun  with  results  as  shown  above.  Not 
Bohemians  alone,  but  Poles,  Slovaks,  and  Maygars  have 
been  approached,  and  the  feehng  of  despair  that  once 
prevailed  as  to  the  rehgious  susceptibihty  of  these 
people  has  given  way  to  one  of  extreme  hopefulness. 
Indeed,  why  should  not  the  children  of  John  Huss 
make  good  Christians? 

The  Scandinavian  Department  fell  to  the  early  care 
of  Rev.  Marcus  W.  Montgomery,  whose  journeyings  as 
Missionary  Superintendent  of  Minnesota  brought  him 
into  closest  touch  with  this  interesting  people.  He 
learned  to  love  them  with  a  warm  heart,  and  they  learned 
to  trust  him  with  a  personal  affection ;  thus  it  happened 
by  a  manifestly  divine  ordination  he  was  called  to  be 
their  leader  and  chief  missionary.  It  was  in  this  rela- 
tion to  the  Scandinavians  of  the  Northwest  that  Mr. 

'  Rev.  John  Prucha. 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  271 

Montgomery  became  a  discoverer,  and  added  a  chapter 
to  ecclesiastical  history  which  it  would  be  a  violence  to 
the  purpose  of  this  narrative  to  pass  with  a  mere  allusion. 

When,  in  1883,  worn  with  work,  it  became  clearly  his 
duty  to  recruit  his  strength  by  foreign  travel,  and  when 
this  was  made  possible  by  the  material  help  of  a  Minne- 
apolis layman,  Mr.  Montgomery's  sympathies  drew  him 
naturally  to  Sweden  and  Norway. 

His  own  estimate  of  the  Scandinavian  element,  which 
at  that  time  made  up  one  fourth  of  the  population  of 
Minnesota,  may  here  be  given:  "The  Scandinavians  are, 
all  things  considered,  among  the  best  foreigners  who 
come  to  American  shores.  They  are  almost  universally 
Protestants;  comparatively  few  of  them  are  sceptics. 
They  have  been  reared  to  beheve  in  God,  the  Bible,  the 
Sabbath,  and  in  salvation  through  Christ.  They  evi- 
dently love  the  principles  upon  which  our  republic  rests 
and  hence  are  intensely  loyal.  In  politics  they  are 
generally  RepubHcan.  They  have  large,  strong  bodies; 
are  industrious,  frugal,  apt,  modest,  intelligent.  They 
are  not  exclusive  nor  clannish  as  to  occupation  or  loca- 
tion. They  are  in  every  profession:  are  ministers, 
lawyers,  physicians,  teachers;  are  also  in  every  busi- 
ness: farmers,  manufacturers,  merchants,  bankers, 
artisans,  miners,  and  day-laborers.  They  come  here  to 
stay,  buy  real  estate,  build  good  houses,  found  acade- 
mies and  colleges,  and  tens  of  thousands  more  'from 
the  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun'  are  following  them 
hither." 

Such  was  Mr.  Montgomery's  judgment  before  visiting 
Scandinavia,  and  it  was  reiterated  in  more  positive  terms 
after  his  return:  "After  a  careful  observation  of  these 
people  in  this  land  and  in  their  native  countries  I  am 


272  Leavening  the  Nation 

clearly  of  the  opinion  that  they  are  more  nearly  like  Amer- 
icans than  are  any  other  foreign  people.  In  manners  and 
customs,  poUtical  and  religious  instincts,  fertihty  of 
adaptation,  personal  appearance,  and  cosmopolitan 
character,  they  are  strikingly  like  native  Americans. 
No  pecuhar  physiognomy  is  stamped  upon  them  to  point 
them  out  the  world  over.  They  find  the  English  lan- 
guage easy,  and  quickly  acquire  it  and  lose  a  foreign 
brogue.  The  first  generation  of  American-born  Scandi- 
navians, when  they  reach  the  age  of  twenty  years,  can- 
not generally  be  distinguished  from  Americans  by  either 
appearance,  language,  or  customs." 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Montgomery's  visit,  strangely  little 
was  known  in  America  of  that  religious  movement  in 
Sweden  which  for  nearly  a  century  had  been  drawing  a 
line  of  separation  in  the  national  (Lutheran)  church  be- 
tween the  more  and  the  less  spiritual  membership  of 
that  communion.  Rumor  of  it  had  reached  this  side  of 
the  sea,  but  almost  nothing  of  its  strength  or  its  history 
was  known  to  American  Christians.  The  same  igno- 
rance prevailed  in  London.  On  his  way  to  the  North, 
Mr.  Montgomery  called  upon  Dr.  Joseph  Parker,  and 
inquired  of  him  whether  it  were  true  that  there  was  a 
great  free-church  movement  in  Sweden  which  was  essen- 
tially Congregational.  Dr.  Parker  knew  nothing  of  it, 
and  referred  his  visitor  to  Memorial  Hall ;  but  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Congregational  Union  could  only  confess  to 
the  rumor  similar  to  that  which  had  reached  the  United 
States.  It  is  not  strange  after  this  abundant  lack  of 
knowledge  in  England,  so  near  the  North,  that  Mr.  Mont- 
gomery continued  his  journey  quite  prepared  for  great 
disappointment.  Disappointment  certainly  awaited 
him,  but  of  the  happiest  kind. 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  273 

It  is  not  permitted  in  the  limits  of  this  narrative  to 
trace  his  journeyings,  or  the  patient  inquiries  he  insti- 
tuted and  the  marvelous  discoveries  which  rewarded  his 
search.  The  whole  story  makes  one  of  the  brightest 
chapters  in  the  collateral  results  of  American  Home 
Missions.     It  can  be  only  briefly  summarized. 

The  history  of  the  "Free-Mission"  revolt  from  the 
Lutheran  church  in  Sweden  and  Norway  is  singularly 
parallel  with  that  of  the  English  Puritans  and  Separa- 
tists. It  began  in  the  church  and  continued  for  years 
to  hope  and  labor  for  the  purification  of  that  body. 
Failing  in  tliis  it  separated  fro7n  the  church  and  set  up 
its  own  standards  of  faith  and  practice.  The  main 
issues  of  divergence  are  those  that  have  characterized 
every  such  revolt  in  the  history  of  Christianity.  Briefly 
stated  they  were: 

1.  That  a  State  Church,  including  in  its  membership 
all  citizens,  cannot  be  a  true  church  of  Christ. 

2.  That  the  Christian  Church  should  be  composed  of 
those  only  who  are  supposed  to  be  converted. 

3.  That  only  converted  men  should  be  pastors  of 
churches. 

4.  That  only  those  should  partake  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per who  believe  in  Christ. 

At  first  these  earnest  Christians  began  to  meet  in 
private  circles  to  partake  of  the  communion  together. 
Then  the  Lutheran  priests  refused  to  serve  them  except 
at  the  public  table  in  the  State  Church.  This  led  to  the 
formation  of  "  Lord's-Supper  Societies,"  and  the  choice 
of  one  of  their  own  members  to  serve  at  the  table. 
These  circles  were  finally  called  "Mission  Societies"  for 
Christian  work,  and  these  in  time  became  regularly  organ- 
ized churches  on  a  "free"  and  severely  independent  plan. 


274  Leavening  the  Nation 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Montgomery's  visit  there  were  at 
least  150,000  Christians  thus  associated  in  Norway  and 
Sweden,  and  a  large  number  of  sympathizers  who  had 
not  severed  their  connection  with  the  State  Church. 
Their  creed  was  simple  and  intensely  evangelical,  and 
their  church  polity  rigidly  Congregational  in  all  re- 
spects save  that  of  organized  fellowship.  Yet,  strange 
as  it  may  appear,  up  to  this  time  to  their  Independent 
brethren  of  Great  Britain  and  to  their  Congregational 
brethren  of  America  they  were  absolutely  unknown  save 
by  the  breath  of  rumor.  Great  was  the  joy  of  the  mu- 
tual discovery,  especially  to  the  people  of  the  North, 
when  they  learned  that  the  faith  and  pohty  which  they 
had  prayerfully  evolved  from  their  study  of  the  New 
Testament  were  identical  with  the  practice  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  in  Great  Britain,  Canada,  and  the  United 
States.  Hands  were  stretched  across  the  sea  and  loving 
greetings  were  exchanged. 

Since  Mr.  Montgomery's  visit,  and  as  one  result  of  it, 
Dr.  Waldenstrom  and  Dr.  Ekman,  the  recognized  leaders 
of  the  "Free-Mission"  movement  in  Sweden,  have  more 
than  once  visited  the  United  States,  and  been  cordially 
welcomed  by  the  Triennial  Congregational  Council  and 
the  Home  Missionary  Society  at  its  annual  meeting. 
A  yet  more  important  result  has  been  to  draw  many  of 
the  Free-Mission  churches  of  the  West  into  organic  fel- 
lowship with  the  Congregational  body.  New  churches 
have  also  been  gathered  directly  into  that  fold,  notwith- 
standing their  extreme  leanings  to  independence  and 
their  natural,  but  almost  morbid,  reaction  from  every- 
thing resembling  ecclesiastical  authority. 

Since  the  lamented  death  of  Mr.  Montgomery,  in 
1894.  the  Scandinavian  Department  has  been  under  the 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  275 

direction  of  Rev.  S.  V.  S.  Fisher,  whose  long  service  as 
a  Minnesota  pastor,  his  close  sympathy  with  Mr.  Mont- 
gomery, and  his  personal  interest  in  the  Scandinavian 
people  manifestly  designate  him  for  that  work.  Under 
his  vigorous  lead  eleven  States  are  now  entered  and  the 
gospel  is  preached  in  more  than  seventy  churches  and 
schoolhouses.  Scandinavians  are  liberal  givers,  and  the 
proportion  of  their  contributions  to  the  size  of  their  in- 
comes would  put  some  of  the  wealthiest  churches  of  the 
land  to  shame.  Chicago  Theological  Seminary  has  its 
Dano-Norwegian  and  Swedish  Department,  where  more 
than  300  young  men  have  been  fitted  for  home  and 
foreign-missionary  work.  Carleton  College,  Minnesota, 
has  also  its  Scandinavian  Department,  where  youth  of 
this  race  take  their  first  steps  towards  the  ministry. 

In  general  it  may  be  said  of  the  Congregational  Home 
Missionary  Society  that  where  twenty-five  years  ago  it 
had  scarcely  a  foreign-speaking  missionary  in  its  employ, 
at  the  present  time  226  such  men  and  women  are 
preaching  the  gospel  every  Sabbath  in  thirteen  different 
tongues  to  people  of  as  many  nationalities,  including 
German,  Scandinavian,  Bohemian,  Polish,  French, 
Mexican,  Itahan,  Spanish,  Finnish,  Danish,  Armenian, 
Greek,  and  Welsh. 

The  last-named  nationality  merits  honorable  men- 
tion— foreigners  in  name,  but  blood  of  our  blood,  and 
thoroughly  sympathetic  with  the  highest  American 
ideals,  both  civil  and  religious.  The  Welsh  came  to 
America  with  William  Penn  in  1682.  By  him  they  were 
offered  40,000  acres  in  Pennsylvania  on  which  "to 
maintain  their  own  language,  government,  and  institu- 
tions." A  "New  Wales"  was  the  dream  of  Penn,  and 
might  have  been  reaUzed  but  for  the  restless  enterprise 


276  Leavening  the  Nation 

of  the  settlers  themselves,  who,  hemmed  in  by  an  un- 
known country  tempting  to  exploration,  refused  to  be 
cooped  up  in  a  40,000-acre  lot.  Breaking  through  the 
bounds  of  their  grant,  they  scattered  across  the  colony. 
At  Ebensburg,  on  the  very  top  of  the  mountains,  they 
raised  their  Ebenezer  in  the  shape  of  a  chapel,  which 
grew  into  a  commanding  church  that  survives  to  this 
day,  with  a  membership  of  260. 

This  was  in  1797,  just  when  New  England  was  moving 
for  home  missions.  About  the  same  time  a  Congrega- 
tional church  of  fifty  members  was  gathered  in  Phila- 
delphia, which  afterwards  became  Presbyterian,  and 
is  historically  memorable  for  the  long  and  sometime 
troubled  pastorate  of  Albert  Barnes.  Of  the  Welsh 
people  scattered  through  the  country  more  than  one 
half  are  found  in  Pennsylvania — 10,000  it  is  estimated  in 
the  City  of  Brotherly  Love.  For  years  to  come  the  in- 
creasing trend  of  Welsh  immigration  must  be  towards 
Pennsylvania.  The  mining  interests  of  South  Wales 
and  those  of  the  Keystone  State  are  almost  identical, 
and  these  must  ever  constitute  a  strong  attraction. 
The  newcomers  are  chiefly  Congregational,  Baptist,  and 
Presbyterian,  and  bring  with  them  rehgious  tastes  and 
habits  ingrained  by  generations  of  education.  Home 
Missions  has  found  a  welcome  and  very  fruitful  field 
among  them,  and  no  single  foreign  nationality  has  better 
rewarded  missionary  investments.  Dr.  T.  W.  Jones, 
himself  of  Welsh  descent,  has  for  many  years  been  the 
efficient  superintendent  of  the  Congregational  Home 
Missionary   Society. 

One  marked  and  most  happy  result  is  the  growing 
dechne  of  prejudice  against  the  use  of  English  in  pubhc 
worship.    The  Welsh  have  strong  national  characteris- 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  277 

tics,  to  which  they  chng  with  uncommon  tenacity;  but 
as  their  children,  educated  in  American  schools,  grow 
to  manhood  and  womanhood,  the  barrier  of  language, 
which  at  one  time  seemed  insurmountable,  is  now 
crumbhng  away,  and  purely  Enghsh  services  are  not 
only  tolerated  but  welcomed  by  many  Welsh  churches. 
Thus  the  policy  of  the  Society  in  all  its  dealings  with 
foreign  elements  is  vindicated,  namely,  to  make  all  its 
churches  ultimately  American.  The  United  States  is 
not  a  reserve  for  httle  Germanys,  or  little  Italys,  or 
Uttle  colonies  of  any  nation.  The  least  that  Americans 
can  ask  of  those  who  come  to  the  United  States  for  its 
benefits  is  that  they  shall  become  Americans;  and  to 
this  end,  however  distant,  home-missionary  effort  is 
steadily  aiming. 

Baptist  efforts  for  foreigners  began  as  early  as  1836 
among  the  Welsh  population.  Ten  years  later  the  first 
German  missionary  was  appointed,  three  years  later  the 
first  Scandinavian,  and  in  1849  the  first  French.  To 
these  three  nationaUties  the  Baptist  efforts  have  been 
largely,  but  not  wholly,  confined.  Their  experience  has 
confirmed  the  view  given  above  of  the  perfect  accessi- 
bihty  of  our  foreign  elements  to  the  power  of  the  gospel. 
One  German  church  in  New  York  City,  the  first  to  be 
supported  by  the  Baptist  Board,  has  sent  out  more  than 
twenty  German  missionaries.  The  first  Swedish  Bap- 
tist church  in  America  was  organized  at  Rock  Island, 
111.,  in  1852;  the  second  in  Iowa,  in  1853.  From  this 
double  planting  such  churches  have  multiplied  until 
they  number  318,  and  are  found  in  28  different  States, 
from  Maine  to  California. 

The  Baptist  Theological  Seminary  in  Chicago  has  its 
Scandinavian   Department  for  the  training  of  home- 


278  Leavening  the  Nation 

missionary  pastors.  Work  among  the  Dano-Norwe- 
gians  began  in  1856  at  Raymond,  Wisconsin.  The 
whole  number  of  Scandinavian  Baptists  in  the  United 
States  is  about  26,000,  and  among  all  foreign  national- 
ities 279  missionaries  are  conducting  the  work  for  that 
church. 

The  Presbyterian  Board  of  Home  Missions  is  also 
fully  awake  to  this  new  and  insistent  appeal.  It  has 
German  work  in  Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  South  Dakota, 
Iowa,  Missouri,  Nebraska,  Colorado,  and  Oregon;  Hol- 
land churches  in  Wisconsin,  South  Dakota,  Montana,  and 
Iowa;  Bohemian  churches  in  Wisconsin,  Minnesota, 
South  Dakota,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  and  Kansas;  French 
work  in  Wisconsin,  Swedish  and  Dano-Norwegian  in 
Minnesota;  Armenian  and  Jewish  and  Chinese  work  in 
California,  and  a  body  of  mission  teachers  in  Chicago. 

The  work  of  the  Reformed  Board  may  be  character- 
ized as  almost  exclusively  foreign.  A  glance  at  its  lists 
of  missionary  pastors  is  significant  and  inspiring. 
Hardly  an  American  name  is  to  be  found  among  them, 
and  when  it  is  remembered  that  each  of  these  names 
represents  a  church  or  congregation  of  foreign  birth  or 
parentage,  something  of  the  importance  of  their  work 
in  caring  for  one  foreign  nationality  that  has  found  a 
home  among  us  begins  to  be  appreciated.  We  would, 
for  the  peace  of  our  country,  there  were  more  Hollands 
and  more  Hollander  Americans  to  mingle  their  blood 
with  ours. 

But  while  facts  and  figures  may  be  thus  marshalled, 
showing  that  there  is  life  in  the  home-missionary  army, 
and  a  distinct  movement  towards  the  solution  of  this 
problem,  one  is  appalled  at  the  vastness  of  the  task  and 
the  comparative  feebleness  of  the  effort.     Especially  is 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  279 

it  sadly  evident  that  the  center  of  the  immigration  issue 
has  not  as  yet  been  adequately  touched.  The  American 
City  is  that  center.  If  the  "Twentieth-Century  City," 
as  we  are  told,  is  a  menace  to  the  moral  and  pohtical  well- 
being  of  the  nation,  it  is  the  congested  foreign  elements 
within  the  city  that  make  it  so.  Have  organized  home 
missions  nothing  to  do  with  that  problem? 

The  "Social  Settlement"  has  come  among  us  with 
heahng  in  its  wings.  It  has  passed  the  stage  of  experi- 
ment. Following  the  example  of  Edward  Denison  and 
Arnold  Toynbee,  "  httle  groups  have  multiplied  in 
England  and  America  until  they  now  number  over 
one  hundred  college,  university,  or  social  settlements."  * 
They  seek  to  apply  Christianity  to  the  social  conditions 
as  they  exist  in  our  common  life,  and  to  do  this  in  the 
congested  centers  of  great  cities.  They  are  welcome 
and  blessed  John  the  Baptists,  but  they  are  not  the 
Great  Dehverer,  and  while  they  prepare  the  way  of  the 
Lord  with  loving,  patient  hands,  they  have  never  claimed 
to  be  a  substitute  for  the  church. 

We  have  our  "Rescue  Missions"  as  well,  which  with 
true  Christian  strategy  launch  their  hfe-boats  into  the 
seething  tides  of  city  vice  and  crime:  great  and  blessed 
is  their  saving  work,  but  the  "Rescue  Mission"  makes 
no  claim  to  the  peculiar  functions  of  the  church.  We 
have  also  our  City  Missionaries  going  from  house  to 
house,  ministering  sympathy  to  bodies  and  spirits  that 
are  sick  and  sore  with  the  struggle  of  life;  but  the  city 
mission  does  not  usurp  the  place  of  the  church  nor  do 
its  work.  All  these  ministries  come  from  the  church, 
and  are  themselves  an  earnest  of  what  the  church  can 

*  Graham  Taylor,  before  the  Congregational  Coimcil  at  Port- 
land, Oregon,  in  1898. 


28o  Leavening  the  Nation 

offer  to  souls  that  seek  its  help;  indeed,  they  often  de- 
velop into  churches. 

The  distinct  office  of  organized  home  missions  is  to 
plant  churches;  and  where  are  churches  more  in  de- 
mand than  in  the  reeking  city  slum?  Is  it  asked 
"Where  are  members  to  be  found?"  They  can  be  im- 
ported. Our  social  settlements  are  made  up  of  conse- 
crated men  and  women  who  import  the  home,  in  their 
own  persons,  into  the  very  centers  of  slumdom.  Are 
there  none  to  carry  the  church?  "But  how  are  such 
churches  to  be  equipped  and  supported?  "  As  hospitals 
are  built,  as  asylums  are  supported,  as  libraries  are 
equipped,  as  colleges  are  endowed.  Shall  milUons  be 
poured  out  for  the  suffering  bodies  and  darkened  minds 
of  the  poor  and  unprivileged,  and  must  the  church,  with 
its  diviner  gifts  of  heahng,  be  denied  for  the  want  of  a  few 
thousand  dollars? 

The  author  makes  no  claim  to  prophetic  gifts,  but  he 
believes  that  organized  home  missions  will  not  always 
turn  a  deaf  ear  to  the  bitter  cry  of  the  city  and  pass  by 
on  the  other  side.  The  boast  has  been  that  for  a  hun- 
dred years  it  has  followed  the  people ;  then  it  must  seek 
them  within  the  city  gate.  To  do  so  will  be  the  truest 
economy  as  well  as  the  highest  strategy.  The  wise 
general  masses  his  army  where  the  enemy  is  densest. 
The  hostile  forces  that  threaten  the  future  of  America 
are  not  just  where  they  were  in  1798,  in  the  new  settle- 
ments of  the  West.  They  camp  to-day  in  sohd  city 
wards;  they  are  intrenched  behind  miles  of  tenement 
blocks.  The  enemy  has  shifted  his  ground.  What  is 
the  home-missionary  army  for  but  to  follow  on  and  train 
and  mass  its  guns  against  this  new  attack. 

Not  by  one  word  should  the  city  demand  be  magnified 


Home  Missions  and  the  Immigrant  Problem  281 

to  the  injury  of  the  country  work.  To  do  so  would  be 
poor  strategy  indeed, — for  there  is  no  conflict,  scarcely 
any  division,  between  the  two.  The  growing  density  of 
the  city  is  fed  by  contributions  from  the  country. 
Sweeten  the  spring  and  you  purify  the  stream;  cleanse 
the  streams  and  you  make  clear  the  lake  into  which  they 
flow.  Even  Tammany,  not  always  conspicuous  for 
wisdom,  recognizes  the  principle.  When  it  would  purge 
the  city  reservoirs,  it  begins  forty  miles  back  with  the 
Croton  watershed.  The  towns  and  villages  of  New 
England  are  the  watershed  of  Boston;  New  York, 
Chicago,  St.  Louis,  and  San  Francisco  draw  from  a 
thousand  country  communities,  and  the  country  work 
of  home  missions  is  salt  in  the  springs  of  the  city's  hfe. 
Any  expansion  of  the  city  work  at  the  expense  of  the 
country  would  be  to  strengthen  the  city's  captivity  and 
postpone  her  redemption. 

But  we  may  plead  for,  and  safely  predict,  a  new  pro- 
portion between  the  two.  Not  less  for  the  country, 
which  must  be  kept  sweet  and  pure,  but  more,  vastly 
more,  for  the  city,  which  threatens  to  dominate  with  its 
godless  materiahsm,  if  it  be  not  dominated  itself  by 
something  better.  Said  a  foolish  man  to  a  wise  man  as 
they  walked  together  through  the  slums  of  a  great  city : 
"You  must  grant  that  here  at  least  Christianity  has  been 
a  failure."  "A  failure!"  was  his  reply;  "my  friend,  it 
has  never  been  tried."  Christianity  is  yet  to  be  tried  in 
the  great  cities  of  the  land.  Leaven  must  be  hidden  in 
the  lump  before  its  work  can  even  begin.  "  Salt  is  good," 
but  salt  in  the  attic  of  society  never  yet  healed  corrup- 
tion in  the  cellar.  They  must  be  brought  together. 
The  twentieth  century  of  home  missions  will  not  forget 
the  hamlet  or  the  town,  but  it  is  to  see  Christianity 


282  Leavening  the  Nation 

"tried"  in  the  city,  as  it  has  never  yet  been  tried,  and 
home-missionary  societies  may  reasonably  doubt  their 
right  to  existence  if  they  are  not  found  in  the  forefront 
of  that  endeavor. 


XVIII 
NEW  ENGLAND  TO-DAY 

We  began  our  study  of  the  Home  Missionary  move- 
ment with  New  England  in  1798  (Chapter  II).  That 
particular  date  was  chosen  because  it  marked  the  first 
organized  effort.  New  England  was  named  because 
that  effort  began  in  Connecticut,  was  repeated  by  Massa- 
chusetts one  year  later,  and  by  New  Hampshire  in  1801. 
In  less  than  ten  years  five  New  England  States  had 
Home  Missionary  societies  organized;  not,  primarily, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  State,  but  for  the  new  settlements 
of  the  West.  Thus  New  England  became  the  fountain- 
head  of  the  broad  river  of  National  Home  Missions. 

The  course  of  this  stream  we  have  traced  through  the 
Northwest  Territory,  across  the  Louisiana  Purchase, 
over  the  Rockies  to  Oregon  and  Washington,  down  the 
Pacific  coast  to  the  Calif ornias,  and  backward  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Southern  Belt.  For  more  than 
a  hundred  years  it  has  been  fed,  chiefly,  from  the  foun- 
tain that  gave  it  birth.  Men,  money,  and  moral  sup- 
port have  been  poured  into  it  without  stint ;  and  to  this 
day  no  cause  has  a  stronger  hold  on  the  churches  of  New 
England,  and  for  no  appeal  have  they  a  warmer  wel- 
come than  that  of  American  Home  Missions. 

Meantime  very  great  changes  have  been  passing  over 
New  England  herself.  Her  people,  vastly  increased 
since  1798,  are  no  longer  the  same  homogeneous  family 

283 


284  Leavening  the  Nation 

as  then.  Then  there  was  but  one  Roman-CathoUc 
church  in  Massachusetts.  To-day  more  than  half  the 
people  of  the  Bay  State  are  foreign  born,  or  children  of 
foreign  parents.  The  same  foreign  preponderance  is 
found  in  Rhode  Island.  In  Connecticut  the  two  classes 
are  more  equally  divided,  Cathohcs  gaining;  while  in 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  and  Vermont  the  native  Protes- 
tant forces  are  still  in  a  considerable  majority. 

These  foreign,  and  mainly  Catholic,  masses  are  not 
confined  to  large  cities,  where  their  influence  is  checked 
in  some  measure  by  strong  Protestant  forces.  While 
in  the  State  of  Massachusetts  as  a  whole  every  twelfth 
person  is  a  French  Canadian,  in  seven  of  its  rural  manu- 
facturing towns,  with  population  ranging  from  2,000 
to  8,500,  one  in  two  is  of  that  race;  and  in  twelve  other 
such  towns  one  in  four  of  the  people  is  from  over  the 
Canada  border.  These  strangers  from  the  North  are 
by  no  means  the  worst  of  citizens;  but  they  are  not  of 
New  England  stock,  are  strangers  to  the  traditions  that 
have  given  New  England  her  prestige  in  the  history  of 
America,  and  they  are  slow  to  learn  them. 

Together  with  this  tide  of  alien  origin  and  sympathies 
another  change  has  been  working  to  the  enfeeblement  of 
many  portions  of  New  England.  It  began  late  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  has  been  continuous  in  its  oper- 
ation. Naturally  the  first  colonies  to  be  settled  were 
called  upon  to  furnish  recruits  for  the  nascent  States  of 
the  West.  New  York  and  Ohio  began  to  draw  upon 
New  England  before  the  War  of  the  Revoluticn,  and, 
naturally,  claimed  her  youngest  and  most  vigorous 
blood.  The  opening  of  the  Northwest  Territory  was  an 
appeal  to  the  youth  of  every  New  England  State.  By 
thousands  they  and  their  young  families  joined  the  pro- 


New  England  To-day  285 

cession  of  emigrant  wagons  bound  for  Ohio,  Indiana, 
Illinois,  Michigan,  and  Wisconsin.  The  attraction  of 
the  further  West  was  felt  immediately  after  the  purchase 
of  Louisiana,  and  still  another  exodus  followed  the  open- 
ing of  Oregon  and  the  discovery  of  gold  on  the  Pacific 
coast.  New  England  in  all  these  years  was  regarded 
as  a  choice  reservoir,  to  be  drained  and  drained  again, 
until  the  wonder  is  that  anything  but  dregs  remain. 

It  is  not  denied  that  New  England  found  in  these 
conditions  a  needed  outlet  for  her  growing  population, 
and  that  great  gains  in  wealth  flowed  back  to  her  from 
these  large  migrations;  but  the  process  was  carried  in 
some  sections  almost  to  the  verge  of  depletion.  Many 
New  England  farms  were  deserted  for  the  richer  prairies 
of  the  West;  none  were  left  behind  to  cultivate  them. 
Many  old  homesteads,  which  once  held  the  flower  and 
strength  of  New  England  society,  became  tenantless ;  for 
the  same  flux  of  population  was  going  on  within  New 
England  itself.  The  strength  of  the  hills  ran  down  into 
the  valleys,  finding  its  way  into  the  growing  towns  and 
crowded  cities  of  the  State. 

Between  1880  and  1890,  of  1,502  townships  in  New 
England  932  show  a  loss  in  population.  "A  few  years 
since,  the  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  and  Immigration 
in  New  Hampshire  reported  1 ,442  vacant  and  abandoned 
farms  with  tenantable  buildings  in  that  State."  ^  "In 
1889  the  Commissioner  of  Agriculture  and  Manufacturing 
Interests  in  Vermont  issued  a  circular  stating  that  in 

the  town  of  R there  were  4,000  acres  of  land  offered 

for  sale  at  one  or  two  dollars  per  acre.  One  half  of  these, 
he    says,  are   lands   which  formerly   comprised   great 

» Josiah  Strong,  "The  New  Era,"  p.  167. 


286  Leavening  the  Nation 

farms,  but  with  buildings  now  gone,  and  fast  growing 
up  to  timber;  some  of  this  land  is  used  for  pasturage, 
and  in  other  portions  the  fences  are  not  kept  up,  leaving 
cellar  holes  and  miles  of  stone  walls  to  testify  to  former 
civilization."  ^ 
/•^By  an  inevitable  sequence  many  of  the  stronger  coun- 
try churches  have  languished  under  this  continuous 
blood-letting,  until  New  England,  from  being  the 
mother  of  Home  Missions,  has  been  for  many  years  one 
of  the  largest  beneficiaries  of  missionary  aid.  The 
Eastern  auxiharies  of  the  Congregational  Home  Mission- 
ary Society  have  upon  their  rolls  475  churches  and  mis- 
sionary stations;  in  Maine,  89;  in  New  Hampshire,  62; 
in  Vermont,  71;  in  Massachusetts,  154;  in  Rhode  Island, 
15;  in  Connecticut,  84 — all  together  requiring  an  ex- 
penditure last  year  of  $113,000. 

A  good  proportion  of  these  are  foreign-speaking  mis- 
sions, testifying  to  New  England's  vaUant  effort  to 
redeem  her  adopted  citizens.  Another  hopeful  propor- 
tion are  churches — weak  to-day  only  because  they  are 
young;  to-morrow  they  will  be  strong  and  independent. 
But  a  large  remainder  comprise  many  of  the  ancient 
churches  which  once  sat  triumphant  upon  the  New 
England  hilltops,  and  gave  grandly  of  their  means  to 
home  and  foreign  missions.  Now,  in  their  age  and 
feebleness,  they  turn  for  support  to  the  societies  created 
by  their  own  foresight  for  the  new  settlements  of  the 
West. 

These  are  but  sample  facts  which  might  be  greatly 
multiplied.  Of  themselves  they  are  beyond  dispute. 
On  the  other  hand,  what  they  signify  and  what  they 

» Josiah  Strong,  "The  New  Era." 


New  England  To-day  287 

portend  are  questions  much  in  dispute,  and  not  to  be 
hastily  passed  upon.  "Decadence"  is  the  convenient 
word  of  a  pessimistic  judgment,  and  there  are  things 
which  seem  to  justify  that  mournful  conclusion.  De- 
cadence in  spots  there  certainly  is;  its  signs  are  sadly 
present.  But  decadence  in  spots  does  not  mean,  neces- 
sarily, decadence  on  the  whole;  and  while  that  fatal 
non  sequitur  is  possible,  and  always  so  easy,  it  becomes  us 
to  examine  the  problem  on  all  sides.  Even  facts  that 
are  undeniable  truths  may  mislead  to  conclusions  which 
are  undeniably  false. 

We  have  already  noted  that  the  vast  New  England 
migrations  to  the  West  have  not  been  a  dead  loss  to  New 
England.  To  a  large  extent  they  are  an  undeniable 
benefit;  not  only  opening  to  her  young  men  doors  of 
opportunity  nowhere  to  be  found  east  of  the  Hudson, 
but  also  supplying  safe  and  profitable  investments  for 
Eastern  wealth,  which  have  been  enormously  improved. 
New  England  capital  invested  in  Western  railroads,  made 
necessary  by  Eastern  enterprise,  amounts  to  a  large  pro- 
portion of  their  entire  stock. 

When,  within  a  few  years,  a  great  Southwestern  sys- 
tem, through  peculation  and  mismanagement,  suddenly 
collapsed,  the  greatest  sufferers  by  that  disaster  were 
found  in  Eastern  New  England.  And  they  were  not  all 
capitahsts ;  many  of  them  were  widows  or  country  min- 
isters who  had  staked  all  their  savings  upon  their  faith 
in  the  West.  Visitors  to  some  Western  city,  as  they 
measure  its  costly  business  blocks  and  public  buildings, 
wonder  at  the  inability  of  the  people  to  build  their  own 
churches  and  support  their  ministers,  until  discovering 
that  these  costly  piles  are  heaps  of  New  England  capital. 
The  same  is  true  of  some  of  the  richest  Western  mines 


288  Leavening  the  Nation 

putting  out  millions  of  treasure  yearly,  every  dollar  of 
which,  except  miners'  wages,  returns  to  the  far  East, 
These,  again,  are  but  samples  of  the  benefits  coming  back 
to  New  England,  in  exchange  for  the  richer  gifts  of  her 
sons  and  daughters,  and  constituting  no  small  measure  of 
her  commercial  prosperity.  They  must  count  as  an 
offset  against  any  too  hasty  verdict  of  decadence. 

So,  too,  those  movements  of  population  within  the 
States  themselves,  by  which  the  strength  of  the  hills  is 
absorbed  in  the  mill-towns  and  cities,  are  not,  by  any 
means,  total  losses,  but  losses  only  in  the  regions  thus 
drained.  Indeed,  the  ultimate  result  may  be  a  net  gain. 
The  country  boy,  with  his  sole  capital  of  character,  goes 
to  the  city,  and  in  a  few  years  is  twice  the  man  he  would 
have  been  among  the  hills.  The  hills  have  lost  some- 
thing, but  the  State  as  a  whole  has  gained  much  more, 
and  the  chances  are  good  that  the  hills  will  be  the  gainers 
in  the  end.  Many  a  library,  church,  and  memorial 
building  in  rural  New  England  testify  to  the  loyal  love 
of  the  boy  who  moved  away,  and  is  now  in  position  to  do 
more  for  his  people  than,  living  among  them,  he  could 
ever  have  accomphshed.  Had  he  remained  he  would, 
no  doubt,  have  counted  one,  and  a  good  one,  in  the 
country  church;  but  where  he  is  he  counts  ten  in  the 
religious  forces  of  the  State. 

The  decadence  of  society,  where  it  is  going  on,  will 
reveal  itself,  if  anywhere,  in  the  decline  of  education. 
Dr.  A.  E.  Winship,  himself  a  successful  educator,  in  the 
New  England  Magazine  of  1900  testifies  as  follows  for 
Massachusetts;  and  Massachusetts  is  microcosmic  of 
four  fifths  of  New  England : 

"The  schools  are  much  better  than  they  were  forty 
years  ago,  are  in  better  buildings,  are  better  heated,  and 


New  England  To-day  289 

have  better  lavatories,  with  none  of  the  vile  defacements 
of  those  days.  They  have  better  furniture,  with  none  of 
the  knife- work  then  so  common.  The  course  of  study  is 
more  varied  and  more  human ;  the  school  year  is  longer, 
the  discipline  is  more  reasonable  and  beneficial;  the 
grounds  are  better  kept;  money  is  more  honestly  ex- 
pended; teachers  are  better  educated,  are  more  profes- 
sional, are  employed  with  more  regard  to  their  quahfi- 
cations  for  teaching;  and  more  children  stay  in  school 
fer  advanced  work.  Indeed,  there  is  no  phase  of  school 
work  that  is  not  far  in  advance  of  that  of  forty  years  ago. 
The  laws  contribute  much  to  this  progress :  notably  the 
enforcement  of  the  compulsory  school  laws;  the  centraliz- 
ing of  pupils  by  pubUc  transportation ;  the  insistence  that 
every  town  shall  transport  and  pay  the  tuition  of  chil- 
dren in  some  neighboring  high-school,  if  it  does  not  main- 
tain one  of  its  own ;  free  text-books,  manual  training,  the 
almost  universal  introduction  of  the  pubhc  hbrary,  and 
its  special  use  by  the  schools;  and,  above  all,  expert 
supervision  of  rural  schools,  with  the  requirement  that 
the  Superintendent  shall  not  have  in  charge  more  than 
fifty  schools  nor  be  paid  less  than  $1,500." 

The  picture  thus  drawn  by  a  skilled  hand  will  be  rec- 
ognized among  those  most  conversant  with  New  Eng- 
land, past  and  present,  as  true  to  life;  and,  even  in 
locahties  where  the  conditions  fail  to  match  the  high 
colors  of  the  artist,  those  conchtions  are  brighter  than 
they  were  forty  years  ago.  We  find  Httle  in  the  educa- 
tional progress  of  New  England  to  support  the  verdict 
of  decadence. 

Dark  pictures  are  drawn  of  the  decline  of  church  life 
and  pubUc  worship  in  the  rural  districts.  The  careful 
investigations  of  Professor  Henry  Fairbanks  of  Vermont 


290  Leavening  the  Nation 

into  the  rehgious  destitutions  of  that  State,  made  several 
years  ago,  have  been  widely  quoted  and  deserve  careful 
study.  Prof.  Fairbanks  discovered  that  290  Vermont 
churches  had  become  extinct;  that  in  a  population  at 
that  time  of  332,000,  184,000,  or  more  than  half,  were 
total  neglecters  of  pubhc  worship;  and  that  a  church 
attendance  of  75,000  on  a  pleasant  Sunday  was  a  fair 
average.  Governor  Rollins  of  New  I  ampshire,  in  a 
recent  Fast-day  proclamation,  called  public  attention 
to  the  rehgious  destitution  existing  in  the  rural  districts 
of  that  State.  "There  are  towns,"  said  he,  "where  no 
church  bell  sends  forth  its  solemn  call  from  January  to 
January;  there  are  villages  where  children  grow  up  to 
manh  >  d  un christened ,  there  are  communities  where 
the  dead  are  laid  away  without  the  benison  of  the  name 
of  Christ,  and  where  marriages  are  solemnized  only  by 
the  Justice  of  the  Peace."  Such  statements  from  lead- 
ing men  occupying  high  places  have  attracted  atten- 
tion and  provoked  discussion.  The  facts  have  not  been 
disputed;  they  cannot  be  disputed.  They  are  startling 
and  portentous,  and  make  a  tremendous  appeal  to  home- 
missionary  interest  and  endeavor.  But  their  publica- 
tion and  discussion  have  brought  out  other  facts  which 
are  indispensable  to  a  correct  estimate  of  the  case. 

Regarding  Vermont,  the  testimony  of  Dr.  C.  H.  Mer- 
rill, Home  Missionary  Secretary,  given  in  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary of  May,  1902,  while  not  weakening  the  force  of 
Dr.  Fairbanks'  figures,  indicates  that  remedial  agencies 
are  at  work  and  successfully  contending  with  the  evils 
described.  Says  Dr.  Merrill:  "Facts  giving  evidence  of 
a  growth  comparing  very  favorably  with  changes  in  pop- 
ulation may  be  cited  in  abundance.  Until  the  last  year 
or  two  of  depression,  the  number  of  our  churches  and  the 


New  England  To-day  291 

total  of  membership  have  shown  a  steady  increase,  until 
we  have  passed  the  membership  of  the  two  other  north- 
ern States  of  New  England,  although  the  smallest  in 
population.  In  no  one  year,  down  to  the  present  date, 
have  the  mission  fields,  about  one  fourth  of  the  total 
number  of  churches,  failed  to  show  a  net  gain.  Indeed, 
it  has  been  a  somewhat  surprising  fact  that  our  growth 
has  been  principally  in  those  regions  where  the  popula- 
tion has  been  stationary  or  diminishing.  Since  1894  not 
a  church  has  been  dropped  from  the  roU  of  the  State. 
But  some  of  the  best  results  cannot  be  shown  in  statis- 
tics. The  type  of  religious  Hfe  that  has  been  carried  into 
homes  by  our  visitors;  the  uphft  that  has  come  to  com- 
munities through  the  change  of  atmosphere,  socially, 
intellectually,  and  spiritually;  the  changed  attitude  of 
larger  churches  towards  the  smaller,  as  they  saw  the  fruit- 
fulness  of  missionary  work  in  the  State, — all  this  must 
be  seen  and  felt  to  be  appreciated."  If  the  figures  of 
Dr.  Fairbanks  taken  alone  mean  decadence,  as  they 
surely  do,  the  testimony  of  Dr.  Merrill  several  years 
later  as  plainly  indicates  decadence  in  the  process  of 
arrest.  ^ 

So  also  in  New  Hampshire  there  are  two  sides  to  the 
question  of  degeneration.  Governor  RolHns,  in  his 
proclamation,  has  put  one  of  them  in  strong  fight.  But 
Secretary  A.  T.  Hillman,  whose  official  relation  to  the 
churches  malces  him  an  expert  witness,  has  suppfied  the 
other:  "The  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  saw 
two  counties  in  New  Hampshire  a  barren  waste,  where 
to-day  we  have  6,000  Congregational  church  members, 
in  place  of  forty  towns  with  45,000  people  without  the 
means  of  grace.  In  1857  the  mission  fields  reported 
the  percentage  of  Congregational  church  members  to  the 


292  Leavening  the  Nation 

total  population  as  1  in  57.  The  percentage  in  the  same 
towns  to-day  is  1  in  18.  Some  of  the  first  citizens  of  the 
State  take  issue  with  that  now  famous  proclamation 
which  pictures  the  rural  sections  of  the  State  as  a 
'waste/  to  which  the  SaVjbath  gives  no  music  of  her 
bells.  To  the  question,  'How  does  the  rehgious  condi- 
tion of  your  town  compare  with  ten  and  twenty  years 
ago? '  our  missionaries  answer  almost  without  exception, 
'Improvement  is  noted.' "  It  remains  true,  however, 
that  a  traveller  through  the  rural  districts  of  New  Hamp- 
shire will  find  plenty  of  facts  to  justify  the  Governor's 
statement;  but  if  he  looks  further  he  will  also  find  that 
the  conditions  described,  though  sadly  true,  have  yielded 
and  are  yielding  more  and  more  to  systematic  and  con- 
tinuous home-missionary  culture. 

In  Massachusetts  the  same  indictment  of  decadence 
and  the  same  dismal  prophecies  have  been  current. 
Hasty  generalizations  have  been  made  from  a  small  area 
of  fact.  Deserted  hilltops  and  "a  few  flagrant  crimes 
in  retired  places  "  have  furnished  the  secular  press  with 
texts  for  many  doleful  Jeremiads,  and  the  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society  of  the  State  has  been  asked  in  a  pointed 
way  what  it  is  doing. 

The  Secretary,  Rev.  Josuha  Coit  of  Boston,  in  his 
annual  reports  for  several  years  past  has  multiplied 
answers  to  this  question  which  ought  to  make  pessi- 
mistic critics  very  sad,  though  they  are  a  cause  of  great 
joy  to  every  loyal  son  of  the  Bay  State. 

"So  far  as  decreasing  population  is  concerned,  the 
facts  are  more  encouraging  than  is  generally  supposed. 
While  the  tide  has  not  turned  yet  there  is  a  slackening  of 
the  ebb.  There  has  begun  something  of  a  return  to  the 
country.    The  multipUcation  of  electric  roads,  the  in- 


New  England  To-day  293 

crease  of  good  roads,  and  other  causes  not  so  easily 
stated  are  helping  it  along."  ^ 

The  Massachusetts  hill  towns,  so  called,  are  located 
largely  in  the  counties  of  Berkshire  and  Franklin.  Yet 
in  ten  years,  between  1885  and  1895,  Berkshire  gained  in 
population  12,414.  Its  two  cities  had  a  large  share  of 
the  gain,  but  one  third  less  than  in  the  previous  decade; 
while  the  loss  in  the  rural  districts  was  one  third  less  for 
the  same  period.  Franklin  county  made  a  gain  of  2,700 
during  the  same  decade,  and  while  twenty  towns  lost 
1,259,  six  towns  gained  3,959. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  such  gains  are  not  always 
real  gains  except  in  numbers.  The  exchange  of  native 
stock  for  Irish,  French,  Poles,  and  Swedes  may  leave  the 
last  state  of  any  community  worse  than  the  first;  and 
where  this  costly  process  is  perpetually  going  on  we 
naturally  look  to  see  the  decadence  of  rehgious  forces. 
To  our  surprise,  the  contrary  is  often  true.  The  Secre- 
tary, in  his  report  of  1896,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  home-missionary  churches  of  the  State,  located,  for 
the  most  part,  where  these  changes  are  going  on,  added 
to  their  membership,  on  confession  of  faith,  694,  "a  per- 
centage to  resident  membership  of  ten  and  one  half  per 
cent,  while  the  rest  of  the  churches  in  the  State  show  a 
percentage  of  only  four  per  cent."  It  is  hardly  a  proof 
of  decadence  in  rehgious  power  that  churches  often 
crippled  and  even  decimated  by  removals,  and  hemmed 
in  by  hostile  forces,  should  show  themselves  to  be  more 
than  twice  as  productive  in  spiritual  results  as  the  more 
favored  churches  of  the  State. 

Nor  has  the  virtue  of  self-sacrifice  dechned  among 

*  Massachusetts  Annual  Report,  1896. 


294  Leavening  the  Nation 

these  Christians  of  the  hills.  Their  aggregate  financial 
strength  has  been  sadly  reduced.  They  can  no  longer 
adequately  support  their  ministry,  nor  contribute  largely 
to  missionary  funds,  but  as  one  by  one  the  faithful 
remove  or  drop  out  by  death,  the  remnant  close  up  the 
ranks  and  share  the  added  burden.  Says  Secretary 
Coit:  "The  country  churches  are  making  greater  gifts 
for  the  support  of  the  preaching  of  the  Word  than 
people  are  called  upon  to  do  in  large  towns;  not  greater 
in  amount,  of  course,  but  greater  in  proportion.  That  is 
really  greater.  In  one  case  the  last  year  a  country 
church  asked  that  the  grant  of  $150  be  continued.  There 
was  a  disposition  to  reduce  the  grant — a  very  proper  dis- 
position. But  a  friend  of  the  church  took  his  pencil  and 
figured  a  bit,  and  it  appeared  that  this  church  gave  for 
the  support  of  preaching  and  to  our  benevolent  socie- 
ties, per  resident  member,  twice,  three  times  as  much 
as  some  larger  churches  in  the  conference.  Churches 
where  expenses  and  benevolences  went  above  $10,000 
fell  far  short  in  comparison."  If  these  are  the  signs  of 
decadence  in  "the  greatest "  of  the  Christian  graces,  one 
might  be  tempted  to  pray  for  a  baptism  of  such  de- 
cadence upon  the  whole  State. 

Nor  is  this  all  that  could  be  said.  These  declining 
churches  in  rural  Massachusetts  have  long  been,  and 
still  are,  the  nursery  of  gospel  ministers.  Says  the 
Massachusetts  Secretary:  "A  while  ago,  by  examina- 
tion of  Seminary  catalogues,  and  by  correspondence,  the 
birthplaces  of  1,571  ministers  were  found,  and  it  appeared 
that  1,087  of  them  were  born  in  towns  of  less  than  5,000 
inhabitants,  687  in  towns  of  less  than  2,000,  348  in 
towns  of  less  than  1,000.  In  70  towns  of  aggregate  popu- 
lation less  than  50,000  there  were  348  ministers  born. 


New  England  To-day  295 

In  16  cities,  aggregate  population  971,000,  nearly  twenty 
times  as  many,  there  were  261  ministers  born.  Or,  to 
take  individual  country  towns,  Ashfield  had  in  1810  its 
largest  population,  2,006,  and  has  sent  out  27  ministers; 
Goshen,  largest  population  in  1800,  724,  and  Goshen  has 
sent  out  25  ministers;  Hawley,  largest  population, 
1,037,  21  ministers;  and  Mary  Lyon,  that  great  gift  to 
educated  women  and  the  world,  was  born  in  Buckland, 
an  adjoining  town  from  which  16  ministers  have  gone. 
And,  besides  ministers,  of  other  educated  men  and 
women  a  host  has  gone  from  the  hills  and  valleys  of  our 
country  towns,  for  the  upbuilding  of  good  things  and 
true,  all  over  the  land."  This  form  of  fruitfulness  is  not 
a  thing  of  the  far  past  only.  Glance  at  any  college  or 
seminary  catalogue  of  to-day  and  it  will  afford  surprise  to 
learn  how  large  a  proportion  of  young  men  and  women, 
in  courses  of  higher  education,  hail  from  the  country 
towns  of  New  England.  Decadent  in  numbers,  deca- 
dent in  wealth,  they  are  not  decadent  in  mental  Ufe  and 
noble  ambitions. 

Indeed,  have  not  the  decUning  population  and  wealth 
of  rural  New  England  been  rather  hastily  accepted  as 
necessary  tokens  of  a  lowering  rehgious  and  moral  stand- 
ard? On  the  contrary,  in  Massachusetts  and  Vermont, 
and,  presumably,  in  the  other  States,  the  record  estab- 
Hshes  precisely  the  opposite.  In  some  thirty- three  of  the 
country  towns  of  Massachusetts,  where  churches  have 
suffered  the  largest  losses  and  received  missionary  help 
the  longest,  "  the  church  membership  has  so  gained  upon 
the  population  that  there  is  to-day  one  church  member 
in  every  nine  and  a  half  of  the  population,  where  forty 
years  ago  there  was  only  one  in  every  eighteen  and 
three  fifths  of  the  population — an  increasing  church 


296  Leavening  the  Nation 

in  the  face  of  a  decreasing  population  " ;  a  doubUng  of 
church  power  with  a  halving  of  numerical  strength. 

Connecticut  has  suffered  in  the  same  way  as  Massa- 
chusetts and  from  the  same  causes;  but  her  Secretary 
for  home  missions,  Rev.  Joel  S.  Ives,  no  later  than 
October  last  sends  out  this  cheering  note:  "Changes  in 
business  and  population  have  depleted  the  country  and 
lessened  greatly  the  influence  of  the  country  towns ;  but 
many  indications  show  that  the  low  tide  of  country 
depletion  has  been  reached;  indeed,  that  the  tide  has 
turned  to  flood." 

Secretary  W.  H.  Moore,  in  his  report  of  1881,  gives  the 
record  of  sixty-four  ancient  churches  that  have  come  to 
depend  upon  home-missionary  aid  in  their  feebleness. 
Only  one  of  them  proved  beyond  help  and  became 
extinct.  These  old  churches,  depleted  by  emigration, 
contained  in  that  year  6,413  members,  and  had  raised 
up  401  ministers.  Their  contributions  and  legacies  to 
the  missionary  societies  had  aggregated  $282,130,  nearly 
$100,000  more  than  they  had  received  in  missionary  aid. 

Maine  has  its  own  problems.  It  is  a  frontier  State  as 
truly  as  Michigan  or  Wisconsin,  and,  like  them,  its 
frontier  is  on  the  north  and  west.  In  common  with  other 
New  England  States  it  has  suffered  by  depletion  and 
foreign  invasion,  yet  unlike  them  it  has  new  country  to 
be  settled,  which  complicates  the  missionary  situation. 

Whether  the  evil  of  sectarianism  is  greater  in  Maine 
than  in  some  other  States,  or  not,  it  has  attracted  more 
pubhc  attention  through  the  efforts  of  leading  Christians 
of  all  denominations  to  abate  it.  Dr.  W.  DeW.  Hyde, 
President  of  the  Interdenominational  Commission  of 
Maine,  in  a  public  address  at  Chicago  in  1893,  thus  de- 
scribes the  conditions:  "Of  1,350  Protestant  houses  of 


New  England  To-day  297 

worship,  360  are  reported  vacant,  and  136  more  are 
simply  'supplied'  by  pastors  who  reside  elsewhere;  70 
per  cent,  of  the  churches  represented  in  our  Commission 
have  100  members  or  less,  each.  Of  242  Congregational 
churches  in  Maine,  118  receive  missionary  aid.  Only  a 
little  more  than  one  half  are  self-supporting.  There  are 
18  towns  in  Maine  in  which  the  average  population  is 
only  244,  yet  these  18  towns  have  49  Evangelical  churches 
with  37  church  buildings.  One  town  of  470  people  has 
three  churches  and  three  houses  of  worship.  Another, 
with  140  people,  has  two  churches." 

Ten  years  ago  leading  pastors  and  laymen  of  the 
Baptist,  Congregational,  Free-Baptist,  and  Methodist 
churches  united  in  forming  the  Interdenominational 
Commission,  "to  promote  cooperation  in  the  organiza- 
tion and  maintenance  of  churches  in  Maine;  to  prevent 
waste  of  resources  and  effort  in  the  smaller  towns,  and  to 
stimulate  missionary  work  in  the  destitute  regions." 
The  Commission  does  not  aim  to  substitute  the  "  Union" 
church  for  the  "Denominational,"  but  to  preserve  for 
each  church  and  denomination  its  legitimate  claim  to 
the  ground  it  occupies;  to  protect  it  against  inter- 
ference; to  revive  it  if  weak,  and  to  adjudicate  all  ques- 
tions that  may  arise  as  to  the  right  of  possession.  Thus 
it  has  recently  decided  that  in  a  new  mill  town  of  3,000 
the  Baptists  and  Congregationalists  are  entitled  to  the 
field,  and  all  others  by  mutual  agreement  are  to  avoid 
entering.* 

Such  a  court  is  invaluable.  It  renders  a  double  service 
to  the  missionary  societies,  relieving  them  of  the  always 
delicate  question  of  granting  missionary  aid  to  an  over- 

'  Secretary  Harbutt,  Seventy-sixth  Report  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Home  Missionary  Society,  p.  23. 


298  Leavening  the  Nation 

crowded  field,  and  saving  them  the  necessity  of  self- 
defense  against  unjust  invasion.  The  work  of  the  Com- 
mission thus  far  has  been  fruitful  in  economizing  funds, 
in  promoting  fellowship  and  in  strengthening  the  re- 
ligious forces  of  the  State.  Thus  it  is  doing  much  to 
arrest  decadence  and  to  promote  healthy  develop- 
ment. 

It  is  also  to  be  gratefully  noted  that  the  New  England 
States,  especially  the  southern  group,  are  actively  grap- 
pling with  the  foreign  menace.  Next  to  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania,  Massachusetts  is  receiving  more  immi- 
grants from  abroad  than  any  other  State  of  the  Union 
— more  even  than  Illinois.  Its  State  Home  Missionary 
Society  invests  about  $20,000  annually  in  foreign- 
speaking  missions,  including  nine  different  nationalities 
— Armenian,  Finnish,  French,  German,  Greek,  Italian, 
Norwegian,  Swedish,  and  Poles.  The  French  and 
Swedish  work  are  phenomenally  fruitful.  In  ten  years 
the  growth  of  these  churches,  as  compared  with  that  of 
American  churches  in  the  same  towns,  is  far  in  advance. 
Thus  French  communicants  have  increased  180  per 
cent.,  Swedish  communicants  205  per  cent.,  while  Ameri- 
can communicants  have  multiplied  only  73  per  cent. 
These  figures  imply  vitality  and  success,  and  continued, 
as  they  promise  to  be,  they  indicate  a  gathering  of  leav- 
ening power  that  will  go  far  to  lighten  and  sweeten  the 
foreign  elements  of  the  State. 

The  American-French  College  at  Springfield,  a  home- 
missionary  plant,  is  supplying  spiritual  as  well  as  mental 
training,  not  alone  for  the  French,  but  for  Italians, 
Armenians,  Greeks,  Irish,  English,  Japanese,  Syrians, 
and  Assyrians — all  of  which  are  represented  in  its  more 
than  one  hundred  students.     Its  curriculum  of  study  is 


New  England  To-day  299 

specially  adapted  to  train  young  men  and  women  to 
become  leaders  and  teachers  of  their  own  people. 

Connecticut,  also,  adds  to  its  American  work  an  active 
mission  among  foreigners,  who  now  make  38  per  cent,  of 
her  population.  Its  State  Society  reaches  Swedes, 
Danes,  Germans,  Hungarians,  French,  and  Italians,  and 
by  a  wise  system  of  distribution  it  enters  not  less  than 
one  hundred  different  localities  by  its  foreign  mission- 
aries.   Rhode  Island  is  doing  its  share  of  the  same  work. 

But  no  brief  sketch  can  do  full  justice  to  the  mission- 
ary activities  of  the  New  England  States.  It  may  be 
true  in  a  sense  that  "good  old  New  England  has  gone, 
and  a  new  New  England,  a  new  Massachusetts  is  being 
formed."  Yet  in  one  respect,  at  least,  and  that  a  radi- 
cal one,  New  England  is  not  only  true  to  its  early  tradi- 
tions but  has  surpassed  them  year  by  year.  For  some 
reason  not  entirely  clear,  it  is  the  habit  of  those  who  dis- 
cuss the  question  of  New  England  decadence  to  refer  to 
a  time  "forty  years  ago."  It  is  perhaps  only  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact  that  forty  years  cover  a  complete  genera- 
tion, in  which  progress  or  decline  may  be  reasonably 
established  by  comparison.  Apply  this  standard  to  one 
factor  in  the  question  we  are  considering, — that  of 
Christian  benevolence. 

If  the  rehgious  hfe  of  New  England  is,  on  the  whole, 
dechning,  as  often  asserted  and  perhaps  more  widely 
feared,  such  decline  must  show  itself  first  of  all,  we 
should  reason,  in  its  money  gifts  to  the  missonary  work 
of  the  denomination.  For  something  more  than  a  mere 
appeal  is  needed  to  fill  the  missionary  treasury.  The 
appeal  must  find  conviction,  faith,  and  ability  on  the  part 
of  the  people,  or  it  falls  to  the  ground.  Any  increase  of 
benevolence  must  mean  the  growth  of  these  conditions; 


300  Leavening  the  Nation 

and  if  the  incrcaf  hould  be  found  to  exceed  the  growth 
of  the  church  membership,  it  may  be  fairly  inferred  that 
"conviction,  faith,  and  abihty,"  so  far  from  being  deca- 
dent, are  in  the  ascendant. 

Take  the  home-missionary  contributions  of  the  Congre- 
gational churches  of  New  England  for  the  last  "forty 
years."  It  w»uld  be  helpful  could  we  apply  the  same 
test  to  foreign  missions  and  to  other  than  Congregational 
churches,  yet  scarcely  necessary,  since  in  such  a  ques- 
tion, if  ever,  it  is  possible  "from  one,  to  learn  all." 

During  the  first  of  these  four  decades  (1862-1872), 
New  England  churches  contributed  to  their  Home 
Missionary  Society  $1,589,666.  Their  average  church 
membership  for  that  decade  was  181,989;  who  gave, 
therefore,  at  the  rate  of  87  cents  a  year  per  member. 

During  the  second  decade  (1872-1882),  the  aggregate 
home-missionary  gifts  of  New  England  rose  to  $2,009,- 
013,  and  the  average  membership  to  198,366;  who  con- 
tributed, therefore,  at  the  rate  of  $1.01  per  member. 

In  the  third  decade  (1882-1892),  home-missionary 
contributions  from  New  England  advanced  to  $3,079,- 
760.  The  average  church  membership  for  the  decade 
was  218,870,  and  their  gift  per  member  was  $1.40. 

In  the  fourth,  and  last,  decade  of  the  period  (1892- 
1902),  the  contributions  of  the  New  England  churches 
to  home  missions  were  $3,499,491;  with  an  average  mem- 
bership of  243,199,  or  an  average  gift  per  member  of 
$1.43. 

Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  ten  years  from  1892  to 
1902  included  the  worst  industrial  panic  in  the  history 
of  the  country,  when  all  benevolences  suffered  a  reverse 
from  which  they  have  hardly  yet  recovered.  Never- 
theless,  New   England   added  $500,000  to  her  home- 


New  England  To-day 


301 


missionary  contributions  and  raised  the  average  gift  of 
her  churches  from  $1.40  to  $1.43  per  member. 

"Forty  years  ago,"  therefore,  New  England  Congre- 
gationahsts  were  giving  one  million  and  a  half  dollars  to 
home  missions  in  ten-year  periods.  To-day  they  are 
giving  three  million  and  a  half  dollars  in  the  same  period 
of  time.  Then  their  "conviction,  faith,  and  abiKty," 
prompted  them  to  give  eighty-seven  cents  a  year  per 
member.  To-day  they  are  cheerfully  contributing  one 
dollar  and  forty-three  cents  per  member  for  the  same  cause. 
They  have  more  than  doubled  their  aggregate  contri- 
butions and  nearly  doubled  their  individual  gifts,  while 
their  nimierical  strength  has  increased  only  about  one 
third. 

The  following  table  presents  the  facts  in  a  concrete 
form: 


Contributions  from  the  New  England  States  to  the 
Congregational  Home  Missionary  Society  for  Forty 
Years  by  Decades. 


Period. 

Amount 
Contributed. 

Average 
per  Year. 

Average 
Church  Mem- 
bership. 

Average 

per 
Member. 

1862-1872 

1872-1882 

1882-1892 

1892-1902 

$1,589,666 
2,009,013 
3,079,760 
3,449,491 

$158,966 
200,901 
307,976 
344,949 

181,989 
198,366 
218,870 
243,199 

$  .87 
1.01 
1.40 
1.43 

These  discoveries  do  not  invahdate  a  single  statement 
of  those  eminent  gentlemen  who  have  wisely  sought  to 
acquaint  the  people  with  the  true  condition  of  New 
England.  But  they  should  reUeve  the  fears  and  silence 
the  gloomy  forebodings  of  many  who  have  drawn  false 
conclusions  from  undoubted  but  only  partial  facts. 

It  is  altogether  true,  as  asserted,  that  churches  once 


302  Leavening  the  Nation 

strong  are  fatally  weakened,  and  that  many  of  them 
have  died;  true  that  country  towns  in  great  numbers 
have  exchanged  a  homogeneous  native  population  for  a 
mixed,  native,  and  foreign,  to  their  own  hurt  and  en- 
feeblement;  true,  again,  that  crime  and  vice  have  in- 
creased in  many  parts  of  New  England  as  a  result  of 
these  changes,  and  that  this  process  of  degeneration  is 
going  on,  in  spots,  to  the  sorrow  and  alarm  of  all  good 
people ;  all  true — but  they  do  not  prove  that  New  Eng- 
land, as  a  whole,  is  decadent.  Other  facts  named  in  this 
chapter  establish  quite  the  opposite. 

Popular  education  is  a  growing  power  among  her 
people;  churches  reduced  one  half  in  strength  have 
doubled  their  efficiency ;  young  men  lost  to  their  native 
hills  are  a  larger  gain  to  the  forces  that  make  for  right- 
eousness in  the  State.  The  "conviction  and  faith"  of 
the  churches  in  the  power  of  the  gospel  to  redeem 
humanity  have  more  than  doubled  in  forty  years,  and 
were  never  so  splendidly  embodied  as  they  are  to-day  in 
home-missionary  efforts,  native  and  foreign,  which  are 
slowly,  though  firmly  and  surely,  redeeming  New  Eng- 
land. Towards  the  full  consummation  of  that  ideal  a 
hopeful  Christianity  bids  us  look ;  for  it  we  are  to  labor, 
pray,  and  give ;  and  at  every  step  of  the  way  we  are  to 
take  counsel  of  our  faith,  and  not  of  our  fears. 


XIX 

WOMAN'S  PART 

"The  Kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  leaven  which  a  woman 

took "       The  Christian  women   of    New    England 

were  not  slow  to  discern  the  special  application  of  the 
parable  to  themselves.  Early  in  that  fruitful  decade 
between  1798  and  1808,  two  years  before  the  Massa- 
chusetts Baptist  Society  was  formed,  fourteen  women 
of  Boston,  part  of  them  Baptists  and  part  Congrega- 
tionalists,  met  to  organize  the  "  Boston  Female  Society 
for  Missionary  Purposes.''  This  was  in  1800.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  year,  they  had  raised  $150  for  home  mis- 
sions, and  Female  Mite  and  Cent  societies  had  spnmg  up 
in  various  parts  of  the  State. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  "Female  Cent 
Institution  of  New  Hampshire,"  organized  in  1804,  was 
patterned  upon,  or  even  suggested  by  the  Boston  experi- 
ment. It  was  a  missionary  decade.  The  atmosphere 
of  New  England  was  charged  with  evangelistic  ozone. 
The  Connecticut  Society,  the  Massachusetts  Society, 
the  New  Hampshire  Society,  the  Vermont  and  Maine 
societies,  the  Massachusetts  Baptist  Society,  the  Pres- 
byterian Committee  on  Home  Missions,  the  first  move- 
ments of  the  Reformed  General  Synod  all  began  between 
1798  and  1807,  and,  so  far  as  the  record  shows,  with  no 
preconcert  of  action.    The  Female  Cent  Institution  of 

303 


304  Leavening  the  Nation 

New  Hampshire  was  another  independent  link  in  the 
home-missionary  chain  of  the  period. 

"Its  origin  may  be  traced  to  an  exigency.  In  1804  a 
few  ministerial  friends  of  the  New  Hampshire  Mission- 
ary Society,  which  had  been  founded  three  years  before, 
were  in  anxious  conference  regarding  its  interests  at  the 
house  of  Rev.  Asa  McFarland  in  Concord.  They  were 
seriously  embarrassed  by  the  want  of  funds  for  the  prose- 
cution of  its  work.  This  fact  came  to  the  knowledge 
of  their  hostess  (Mrs.  McFarland).  Her  sympathy  was 
excited,  and  as  she  reflected  upon  a  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem, a  still,  small  voice  whispered  in  her  sensitive  ear  that 
the  women  of  the  State  might  render  essential  aid  to  the 
cause  by  the  formation  of  cent  societies  in  different 
localities,  each  of  whose  members  should  contribute  one 
cent  a  week  to  the  missionary  treasury.  This  she  pro- 
posed to  her  perplexed  guests.  The  offer  was  hailed  with 
delight,  and  just  then  and  thus  was  born  the  New 
Hampshire  Cent  Institution.''  ^ 

Only  two  churches,  Hanover  and  Raymond,  had  fol- 
lowed the  lead  of  Concord  at  the  end  of  the  first  year,  and 
the  receipts  were  $5.00.  At  the  end  of  ten  years  auxil- 
iaries had  so  multiplied  that  the  annual  income  had  risen 
to  $1,360;  and  in  ninety-eight  years  the  Society  had 
raised  $171,445.81,  and  gathered  an  invested  fund  of 
about  $18,000  in  memory  of  its  founder.  Of  this  sum, 
$136,169.66  have  been  turned  over  to  the  New  Hamp- 
shire Home  Missionary  Society.  Since  1890,  when 
without  dropping  its  historic  name  it  became  a  State 
Union,  it  has  divided  its  funds  with  the  other  homeland 
societies    of    the    Congregational    churches.     Of    New 

*  Eighty-fifth  Annual  Report. 


Woman's  Part  305 

Hampshire's  180  churches  to-day,  140  have  auxiharies 
of  the  Cent  Institution. 

This  organization  has  a  remarkable  history.  "For 
eighty-six  years,"  says  its  present  treasurer,*  "its  exist- 
ence was  of  a  most  spiritual  nature,  no  meetings  being 
held,  the  only  visible  medium  of  communication  being 
the  report  pubhshed  annually  by  its  only  officer,  a  treas- 
urer who  also  served  as  secretar}^  and  the  letters  passing 
between  the  auxiUary  collectors  and  the  treasurer. 
During  this  long  period  of  nearly  one  hundred  years,  the 
Society  has  had  but  four  treasurers."  Quite  as  remark- 
able is  the  work  it  has  accomplished  by  these  simple 
means.  The  Secretary  of  the  New  Hampshire  Home 
Missionary  Society,  at  its  recent  centennial,  acknowl- 
edges that  the  Cent  Institution  has  supported  the  home- 
missionary  work  of  the  State  more  than  one  ninth  of  the 
century  on  the  present  basis  of  expenditure.  The  grave 
of  Mrs.  McFarland,  its  foimder,  is  marked  by  a  plain 
headstone  bearing  the  signally  appropriate  inscription, 
"She  hath  done  what  she  could.". 

Presbyterian  women,  prior  to  1861,  had  been  large 
givers  to  their  Home  Board ;  but  it  was  not  until  then 
that  distinct  organizations  among  them  began  to  appear. 
The  Women's  Missionary  Society  of  New  York  organized 
that  year.  The  Santa  Fe  Missionary  Association  and  the 
Long  Island  Women's  Missionary  Society,  some  years 
later,  were  the  heralds  of  a  new  movement  organized  in 
1878,  and  known  as  the  "Women's  Executive  Committee 
of  Home  Missions,"  auxiliary  to  the  Presbyterian  Board. 
Its  object  was  to  cooperate  with  the  Home  Board  on 
behalf  of  exceptional  populations.    The  Board  itself  was 

*  Miss  A.  A.  McFarlanA 


3o6  Leavening  the  Nation 

restricted  by  its  charter  to  organizing  churches  and 
preaching  the  gospel.  But  in  Alaska,  Utah,  New 
Mexico,  and  in  many  parts  of  the  South  a  preparatory 
educational  work  was  found  to  be  indispensable.  To 
their  help  in  this  dilemma  came  the  women,  not  with  an 
independent  organization,  but  with  the  agreement  to 
undertake  no  work  without  the  Board's  approval.  Their 
objects  were  clearly  stated  to  be:  "The  diffusion  of 
missionary  intelligence;  the  unification  of  women's  work 
for  home  missions;  the  raising  of  money  for  teachers' 
salaries;  the  preparation  and  distribution  of  missionary 
boxes,  and  the  furnishing  of  aid  and  comfort  in  special 
cases  of  affliction  and  need."  Receipts  the  first  year 
were  $3,138.89,  gradually  increasing,  until  in  1901  the 
Women's  Executive  Committee  were  disbursing  $357,- 
201.88  for  general  missionary  purposes,  including  the 
salaries  of  425  missionary  teachers.  They  have  raised 
from  the  beginning  three  and  a  half  million  dollars. 

The  zeal  of  the  Baptist  women,  as  already  noted,  began 
to  declare  itself  in  Massachusetts  in  1800.  In  New  York 
State  as  early  as  1812  we  find  the  Hamilton  Female  Bap- 
tist Society  presenting  "twenty  yards  of  fulled  cloth" 
to  the  Hamilton  Baptist  Missionary  Society  for  mis- 
sionary purposes.  The  lack  of  ready  money  was  no 
barrier  to  the  women  of  those  days.  Not  only  "fulled 
cloth"  but  "a  useless  article  of  dress,  $9.00,"  "Avails 
of  ornaments,  $5.68,"  and,  again,  "Avails  of  ornaments, 
$6.75,"  are  found  among  home-missionary  receipts.* 
Before  1850,  women's  societies  to  the  number  of  nearly 
fifty  had  been  organized  in  as  many  different  towns  and 
cities,  and  were  contributing  about  $12,000  yearly  to 

'H.  L.  Morehouse,  "Baptist  Jubilee  Volume,"  pp.  516-17. 


Woman's  Part  307 

the  General  Society.  No  attempt  at  unification  had 
been  made. 

The  year  1877  was  marked  by  two  movements  which 
gave  a  distinct  impulse  to  woman's  work  among  the 
Baptists.  In  February  of  that  year  the  Woman's 
Baptist  Home  Missionary  Society  was  organized  in 
Chicago,  having  auxiharies  in  the  East  and  claiming  as 
its  field  the  whole  country.  Several  months  later,  in 
November  of  the  same  year,  the  Women's  American 
Baptist  Home  Mission  Society  was  organized  in  Boston, 
claiming  New  England  "at  least"  as  its  feeding  ground. 
The  next  important  step  was  to  consohdate,  or  at  least 
to  unify,  these  organizations ;  which  was  done  at  Sara- 
toga in  May,  1879.  The  Chicago  Society  has  since  that 
time  devoted  itself  chiefly  to  the  evangelization  of  the 
homes  of  the  degraded  among  the  blacks,  the  Indians, 
and  immigrant  populations,  with  a  training-school  in 
Chicago.  The  Boston  Society  "has  given  special  atten- 
tion to  the  Christian  education  of  young  women  among 
the  colored  people  of  the  South,  and  some  attention  to 
other  missionary  work."  From  these  and  other  more 
local  organizations  $1,500,000  have  been  added  to 
Baptist  home-missionary  funds. 

Congregational  women  have  not  lagged  behind  their 
sisters  of  other  churches  in  home-missionary  zeal.  As 
already  noted,  they  were  part  of  the  fourteen  who  in- 
augurated organized  effort  among  women  in  1800.  The 
Cent  Institution  of  New  Hampshire  also  was  their  child 
in  that  State.  Yet  for  many  years  no  further  attempts 
at  organized  effort  were  made.  Every  church  of  con- 
siderable strength  in  New  England,  and  States  beyond, 
had  its  devoted  band  of  home-missionary  women  who 
met  at  stated  intervals   to  prepare  comforts  for  the 


3o8  Leavening  the  Nation 

home  missionary  and  his  family.  While  their  needles 
flew  they  listened  to  letters  from  their  adopted  mission- 
ary at  the  front,  telling  of  defeats  and  victories,  of 
sufferings  for  Christ's  sake,  and  of  triumphs  in  His  name, 
and  very  often  of  gratitude  for  the  comforts  prepared  by 
unknown  hands,  so  eloquent  with  sympathy  and  love. 
It  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  the  missionary  fami- 
Ues  thus  comforted  were  more  blessed  in  receiving  or 
these  ministering  women  in  giving.  Probably  no  single 
cause  contributed  more  powerfully  to  keep  home-mis- 
sionary interest  warm  in  the  heart  of  the  New-England 
churches  than  this  personal  touch  between  the  women 
and  the  field.  The  worker  and  his  work  became  real 
and  present  to  the  givers.  In  every  home  his  name  and 
field  were  familiar,  and  when  the  time  of  the  annual 
home-missionary  offering  came,  fathers,  mothers,  and 
children  hailed  the  appeal  as  that  of  a  personal  friend  in 
need. 

Although  the  missionary  box  was  never  included  as  a 
part  of  the  missionary  grant,  yet  for  some  years  the 
women  have  been  encouraged  to  put  a  conservative 
value  on  its  contents  and  to  report  this  sum,  in  each  in- 
stance, to  the  Society.  The  record  is  by  no  means  com- 
plete, but  for  the  time  it  has  been  kept  the  value  of  these 
missionary  boxes  prepared  by  the  ministering  women 
of  Congregational  churches  exceeds  two  and  a  half 
million  dollars. 

It  was  inevitable  that  the  interest  thus  kindled  in 
thousands  of  churches  by  their  personal  contact  with  the 
field,  should  develop  at  length  into  some  organized  form. 
That  organization  came  in  February,  1880,  by  the  forma- 
tion of  the  "Woman's  Home  Missionary  Association,'! 
with  official  headquarters  in  Boston.    The  scope  of  the 


Woman's  Part  309 

new  society  was  to  be  national,  and  the  object,  as  stated, 
in  the  fourth  article  of  the  constitution,  was  "To  enlist 
all  the  women  of  the  Congregational  churches  in  prayer 
and  efforts  for  Home  Missions;  to  acquire  and  diffuse 
the  information  needed;  and  to  collect  money  and  other 
gifts  by  contributions,  bequests,  or  otherwise,  for  the 
support  of  women  as  missionaries  and  teachers,  for 
the  aid  of  missionary  famiUes,  and  for  the  promotion  of 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  welfare  of  those  among  whom 
they  labor,  especially  the  women  and  children."  It 
was  further  provided  that  the  Association  should  do  its 
work  on  the  field  through  the  Home  Missionary  Society 
and  its  auxiliaries,  and  through  the  American  Missionary 
Association,  in  order  to  avoid  unnecessary  expense,  and 
in  such  other  ways  as  from  time  to  time  might  be  deter- 
mined. 

For  more  than  twenty  years  the  Association  has 
proved  the  wisdom  of  its  origin  and  the  beneficence  of  its 
mission.  It  has  supported  teachers  in  Utah,  New 
Mexico,  and  the  South;  it  has  contributed  generously 
to  the  support  of  missionaries  commissioned  by  the  Con- 
gregational Home  Missionary  Society  and  by  the  Ameri- 
can Missionary  Association;  it  has  helped  to  build 
churches  and  parsonages;  it  has  aided  the  Sunday-school 
work  of  the  denomination,  and  has  shown  its  practical 
interest  in  the  work  of  Christian  education.  It  has 
divided  with  the  Home  Missionary  Society  and  the  Mis- 
sionary Association  the  labor  of  providing  missionary 
boxes  for  their  needy  men.  It  has  published  a  valuable 
series  of  missionary  leaflets  for  young  and  old,  and  issued 
a  monthly  paper  reporting  its  work,  and  stimulating 
interest  by  attractive  appeals.  For  these  purposes  it 
has  raised  $501,000.    While  it  has  maintained  its  scope 


3IO  Leavening  the  Nation 

as  a  national  organization,  its  auxiliaries  and  its  finan- 
cial support  have  been  derived  mainly  from  the  East. 
Its  location  in  Eastern  New  England  accounts  for  this 
territorial  limitation  in  part,  but  other  reasons  were 
more  operative. 

Even  before  the  Association  was  created  another  move- 
ment had  begun  whose  strength  and  trend  were  not 
clearly  estimated  at  the  time.  Of  course  the  New 
Hampshire  Cent  Institution  had  been  firmly  established 
nearly  eighty  years;  but  in  1872  the  Minnesota  women 
had  organized  a  "State  Union."  Alabama  women  fol- 
lowed in  1877  with  a  similar  organization,  and  during  the 

r  first  five  years  of  the  Woman's  Association,  while  it  was 
young  and  struggling,  the  women  of  ten  other  States — 
Maine,  Michigan,  Kansas,  Ohio,  New  York,  Missouri, 
North  Dakota,  Oregon,  Washington,  and  South  Dakota — 
followed  the  lead  of  Minnesota  and  Alabama,  organized 
themselves  into  State  Unions,  which  were  seeking  auxil- 
;..  iary  relations  with  the  national  homeland  Societies.  The 
State  Union  fever  ran  so  high  that  in  1883  the  Home 
Missionary  Society  and  the  Missionary  Association, 
while  warmly  interested  in  the  success  of  the  Boston 
Society,  were  compelled  to  organize  Woman's  Depart- 
ments of  their  own  to  welcome  the  multiplying  State 
Unions  of  the  East  and  West. 

f  Mrs.  H.  M.  Shelton  was  the  first  secretary  of  the 
Woman's  Department  of  the  Home  Missionary  Society; 
who  after  several  years  of  most  devoted  labor  was 
succeeded  by  Mrs.  H.  S.  Caswell.     Of  the  Woman's  De- 

f    partment  of  the  American  Missionary  Association  Miss 

D.  E.  Emerson  has  been  for  twenty  successive  years 

:  the  untiring  secretary.      To  these  three  women  chief 

credit  is  due  for  the  development  of  woman's  part  in 


Woman's  Part  311 

national  home  missions.  They  have  travelled  widely 
East  and  West;  have  addressed  thousands  of  women, 
and  by  personal  correspondence  have  encouraged  them 
in  their  work.  State  Unions,  under  their  faithful  en- 
deavors, are  now  organized  in  forty-one  States  and  Ter- 
ritories, with  numerous  auxiliaries  in  each.  Mrs.  Cas- 
well, who  for  seventeen  years  was  herself  a  missionary 
among  the  Seneca  Indians,  has  held  something  closer 
than  an  official  relation  to  the  field.  Her  visits  have 
taken  her  among  the  cowboys  of  the  plains,  the  Mexicans 
of  the  Southwest,  the  miners  of  Pennsylvania  and  Idaho, 
and  the  lumbermen  of  Michigan,  and  by  her  pen  and 
voice  the  East  and  West  have  been  made  familiar  with 
home-missionary  conditions.  Both  the  Cent  Society  of 
New  Hampshire  and  the  Woman's  Missionary  Associa- 
tion of  Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island  have  so  far 
modified  their  constitutions  as  to  join  the  family  of 
State  Unions,  and  the  Congregational  women  of  America 
present  to-day  a  united  front  for  State  and  national 
home  missions.  In  their  organized  capacity  they  have 
added  $1,500,000  to  home-missionary  funds. 

Their  influence  on  the  general  work  has  been  most 
happy.  The  various  State  associations  at  their  annual 
meetings  throughout  the  country  warmly  welcomed  to 
their  program  the  Woman's  Hour,  always  giving  it  the 
place  of  honor.  The  annual  gatherings  of  the  National 
Societies  prize  no  session  more  than  the  Woman's  Meet- 
ing, which  is  always  marked  by  spiritual  power  and 
uplift.  No  sudden  crises  in  the  National  Societies  make 
a  vain  appeal  to  these  organized  women.  Emergency 
Funds,  Jubilee  Funds,  Rolls  of  Honor,  and  whatever 
other  distress  or  need  befall  the  home-missionary  work 
receive  from  them  an  instant  and  generous  response. 


r- 


312  Leavening  the  Nation 

While  the  State  Unions  are  detached  units,  they  are  also 
one  body  by  the  fellowship  of  a  common  service,  and 
this  bond  is  strengthened  each  year  by  an  annual  gather- 
ing of  representatives  from  each  Union  in  connection 
with  the  National  Anniversaries,  when  the  common  in- 
terests of  the  great  work  are  made  the  subjects  of  dis- 
cussion, conference,  and  prayer.  Not  the  least  result  of 
this  truly  national  organization  is  the  spirit  of  research  and 
the  study  of  home-missionary  history  which  has  sprung 
up  among  its  members,  and  the  preparation  of  programs 
of  study  for  the  help  of  young  and  old.  In  these  ways 
the  women  of  to-day  are  doing  much  to  perpetuate  an 
intelHgent  home-missionary  constituency  for  the  future. 

In  1882,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  General 
Synod  of  the  Reformed  Church,  the  women  of  that 
church  organized  a  Woman's  Executive  Committee  to 
cooperate  with  the  Board  of  Domestic  Missions  in  Ameri- 
can evangehzation.  This  committee  has  never  become 
incorporated  as  an  independent  organization,  but  re- 
mains auxihary  to  the  Domestic  Board,  working  with  it 
in  entire  harmony. 

It  should  here  be  noted  that  in  all  the  organized  move- 
ments for  Home  Missions  among  women  the  principle 
of  cooperation  has  been  preferred  to  that  of  independ- 
ency. Again  and  again  the  issue  of  independency  has 
been  raised,  and  as  often  it  has  been  decided  adversely. 
The  home-missionary  women  have  studied  both  economy 
and  efficiency  in  making  their  work  auxiliary  to  the 
estabhshed  Boards,  and  as  a  consequence,  in  these  days 
of  discussion  over  administrative  methods  and  of  pro- 
posed consolidation  of  societies,  they  happily  find  them- 
selves untouched  by  criticism  and  in  exact  line  with  the 
growing  sentiment  of  the  churches. 


Woman's  Part  313 

The  first  specific  work  undertaken  by  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Reformed  Church  was  the  erection  of 
parsonages  for  mission  churches.  To  this  they  added 
the  purchase  of  church  furniture,  the  preparation  of 
missionary  boxes,  and  the  organization  of  a  "Paper 
Mission  "  for  supplying  good  Uterature  to  the  missionary 
and  his  people.  They  also  assumed  the  support  of  sev- 
eral missions  among  the  Indians  of  Oklahoma  and  the 
mountain  whites  of  Kentucky,  and  frequently  in  times 
of  financial  distress  have  come  to  the  help  of  their  Home 
Missionary  Board.  An  interesting  feature  of  their  work^ 
has  been  the  support  of  missionary  students  during  the  j 
summer  vacation.  The  Committee  has  had  an  existence 
of  only  twenty  years ;  yet  in  that  time  they  have  added 
$275,360  to  the  home-missionary  funds  of  the  church. 

The  Woman's  Home  Missionary  Society  of  the  Metho- 
dist Church  dates  from  1880,  and  was  organized  with  the 
approval  of  the  General  Conference  of  that  year.  It  has 
erected  cottage  homes  in  connection  with  the  colleges  of 
the  Freedmen's  Aid  Society;  provided  for  the  work  in 
Utah  a  building  at  a  cost  of  $6,000,  and  nine  other  build- 
ings ;  besides  maintaining  mission  schools  in  twelve  places 
and  establishing  the  Lucy  Webb  Hayes  Training-school 
for  deaconesses  in  Washington,  in  honor  of  Mrs.  Ruther-  — 
ford  B.  Hayes,  its  president  during  the  first  nine  years  of 
its  history.  It  has  also  established  missions  of  impor- 
tance and  deaconess  homes,  devoting  much  of  its  atten- 
tion and  means  to  the  Indians,  and  reenforcing  the 
efforts  of  pastors  to  maintain  missions  in  regions  of  the 
country  where  the  resources  of  the  people  have  been 
temporarily  cut  off.* 

»J.  M.  Buckley,  "Methodists,"  p  655. 


3T4  Leavening  the  Nation 

The  Woman's  Auxiliary  of  the  Episcopal  Church  began 
its  remarkable  career  in  1871.  Again  it  was  an  ''auxil- 
iary" and  not  a  "  self- constituted  and  independent 
Society."  It  annually  adds  $350^000  in  money  and 
missionary  supplies  to  the  funds  of  the  church,  and 
since  its  formation  it  has  gathered  nearly  five  million 
dollars  for  missionary  purposes.^  Apart  from  the  work 
it  has  done,  the  missionary  spirit  and  interest  it  has 
aroused  have  been  of  incalculable  service  to  the  church. 

But  money  is  not  the  only  offering  of  Christian  women 
to  home  missions.  In  every  part  of  the  field  they  are 
personally  represented  by  a  growing  army  of  mission- 
aries and  missionary  teachers,  not  a  few  of  them  or- 
dained preachers  of  the  gospel;  and  no  record  of  woman's 
part  would  be  complete  that  failed  to  include  the  silent 
but  powerful  influence  of  missionary  wives  who  share  the 
burdens  of  the  missionary,  counsel  him  in  his  plans  of 
work,  and  often,  with  woman's  cleverness,  insure  their 
success.^ 

Perhaps  the  most  valuable  service  rendered  by  women 
to  the  cause  of  home  missions  is  yet  to  be  named.  From 
the  beginning  of  their  active  cooperation  they  have 
seized  and  magnified  its  spiritual  motives  and  meanings 
to  a  marked  degree.  Being  themselves  relieved  of  im- 
mediate concern  in  its  administration  as  a  business, 
their  meetings  have  been  given  to  conference  and  prayer 
rather  than  to  the  discussion  of  methods  and  policies. 
Just  this  spiritual  tonic  was  needed  to  bring  the  churches 
back  to  the  cardinal  points  of  a  movement  which  began 
a  hundred  years  ago  with  deep  concern  for  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  new  settlements.     The  higher  motives  of 

»  C.  C.  Tiffany,  "Protestant  Episcopal  Church,"  p.  523- 
'  "  Woman's  Work  at  the  Front,"  Miss  M.  D.  Moffatt. 


Woman's  Part  315 

giving  also  have  been  reemphasized  at  a  time  when  the 
C  churches  were  falhng  into  a  benevolent  routine.  The 
home-missionary  women  have  exalted  the  privilege  of 
sacrifice  above  the  mere  duty  of  contributing  money,  and 
the  result  has  been  seen  not  only  in  the  larger  measure, 
(  but  in  the  more  intelligent  spirit  of  benevolence.  Home- 
missionary  Hterature  of  to-day,  much  of  it  prepared  by 
woman's  hand,  will  bear  witness  to  any  careful  reader 
of  a  new  spirit  of  rather  recent  birth — a  spirit  that  lifts 
the  home-missionary  enterprise  into  clearer  air  and  takes 
it  back  nearer  to  the  fountains  of  spiritual  power.  This 
_  renaissance  of  the  spiritual  in  Home  Missions  was  a 
greater  need  than  many  of  its  leaders  appreciated.  It 
has  brought  a  blessing,  and  its  presence  will  abide  so 
long  as  women  continue  in  their  own  way  to  cooperate 
with  their  brethren  in  evangehzing  America. 


XX 

COOPERATIVE  AGENCIES 

When  the  fathers  of  New  England  and  New  York 
began  their  great  fight  against  barbarism  in  the  new 
settlements,  a  large  choice  of  weapons  was  offered  them. 
In  nothing  was  their  wisdom  more  manifest  than  in  the 
selection  they  made.  They  chose  The  Church — not 
because  they  vmdervalued  the  printing  of  Bibles  and 
tracts,  or  the  building  of  meeting-houses,  or  the  planting 
of  colleges  and  seminaries  of  learning ;  but  because  they 
held  the  church  to  be  the  spring  of  all  other  remedial 
agencies,  without  which  all  others  would  languish  and 
die. 

To  plant  the  organized  Church  of  Christ  in  every  new 
settlement  as  it  gathered ;  to  build  this  up  in  the  New- 
Testament  way,  by  the  ordained  pastor  and  teacher  and 
with  the  aid  of  divinely  appointed  ordinances, — this  was 
the  wise  choice  of  wise  men ;  not  to  sprinkle  water  broad- 
cast over  a  thirsty  land,  but  at  wisely  chosen  points  to 
open  hving  fountains ;  to  set  up  Christianity,  not  in  some 
fleeting  form,  but  in  its  most  permanent,  reproductive 
and  divinest  institution,  and  to  leave  it  thus  intrenched  to 
become  the  regenerating  force  of  society, — for  more  than 
a  century  this  has  been  the  working  pohcy  of  Home 
Missions  from  which  its  friends  have  never  deviated. 
In  another  chapter  the  fruits  of  this  pohcy  are  to  be 

316 


Cooperative  Agencies  317 

summed  up ;  but  here  it  is  the  grateful  privilege  of  every 
fair-minded  historian  to  take  note  of  agencies  which 
have  helpfully  cooperated  with  home  missions  in  the 
vast  enterprise  of  leavening  the  nation. 

One  of  the  most  significant  facts  in  the  early  history  of 
America  is  that  memorial  which  came  before  the  Con- 
gress of  1777  asking  the  help  of  the  Government  in  sup- 
plying the  people  with  Bibles.  The  Declaration  had 
been  signed  and  passed;  the  War  of  the  Revolution  was 
in  progress ;  national  existence  was  at  stake ;  and  the  peo- 
ple were  hungering  for  the  Bible.  Congress  referred  the 
petition  to  a  committee,  who  recommended  "that  the 
Government  take  immediate  measures  to  secure  20,000 
copies  from  Holland,  Scotland  or  elsewhere  at  the  ex- 
pense of  Congress." 

Four  years  later,  when  the  struggle  for  existence  was  in 
its  most  desperate  stage,  the  Congress  of  1781,  by  reso- 
lution, highly  approved  the  Bible  printed  by  Robert 
Aitkin  of  Philadelphia,  and  recommended  it  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  Chancellor  Ferris,  in  his  review  of 
fifty  years  in  the  history  of  the  American  Bible  Society, 
quotes  an  unnamed  writer  who  thus  comments  upon 
that  significant  act:  "What  moral  sublimity  in  the 
fact  as  it  stands  imperishably  recorded  and  filed  in  the 
national  archives — the  first  Congress  of  the  United 
States  assuming  the  rights  and  performing  the  duties 
of  a  Bible  Society  long  before  such  an  institution  had 
any  existence  in  the  world ! ' ' 

Thirty  years  passed  before  the  people  themselves 
began  to  organize  societies  for  Bible  distribution.  Their 
first  efforts  fall  into  that  fruitful  decade  between  1798 
and  1808,  when  the  very  air  of  New  England  and  New 
York  seemed  charged  with  missionary  ozone.    Penn- 


3i8  Leavening  the  Nation 

sylvania,  Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  New  Jersey,  and 
New  York,  all  had  their  local  Bible  societies  before  1810; 
and  before  1815  these  had  multiplied  into  132  organiza- 
tions, independent  of  each  other  and  extending  from 
New  Hampshire  to  Louisiana.  Then  by  natural  evolu- 
tion came  the  American  Bible  Society,  in  1816,  gathering 
into  one  focus  of  interest  and  effort  these  scattered  en- 
deavors to  supply  the  people  with  the  Word. 

The  appearance  of  the  Bible  Society  at  the  time  its 
great  work  began  was  a  special  providence  to  Home 
Missions.  It  closely  cooperated  with  the  home-mis- 
sionary societies  in  the  new  settlements,  and  Bible  distri- 
bution became  one  of  the  chief  labors  of  the  missionary. 
In  eighty-six  years  the  Society  has  made  at  least  four 
special  explorations  of  the  States  and  Territories  with  a 
view  to  supply  all  the  destitute  with  the  word  of  life. 
Bibles  by  milhons  have  thus  been  placed  where  they 
were  most  needed  and  as  one  result  the  proportion  of 
families  in  the  United  States  destitute  of  the  Scriptures 
has  been  constantly  decreasing,  notwithstanding  the 
rapid  growth  of  population.  It  is  the  joy  of  the  friends 
of  home  missions  that  its  multiplying  churches  do  not 
forget  the  debt  they  owe  to  the  Bible  Society,  and  that 
its  revenues  for  Bible  distribution  have  increased  from 
$37,000  in  1816  to  $450,000  in  1902. 

Closely  connected  in  the  nature  of  its  work  with  the 
agency  just  named,  came  the  American  Tract  Society  jp. 
1825.  If  the  Bible  Society,  as  one  has  styled  it,  is  "the 
plowshare  of  missions,"  the  Tract  Society  is  the  seeder; 
and  great  has  been  its  sowing.  In  seventy-five  years  t 
has  issued  nearly  8,500  separate  pubhcations,  of  which 
over  2,000  have  been  bound  volumes.  Of  the  latter  more 
than  32,000,000  copies  have  been  circulated,  and  of  I  e 


--^ 

> 

i 

:::^  if$: 

f 

-^:     .,/ 

^A 

,sa»i:';:' 

^"'^ 

^^m. 

John  P.  Durbin,  D.D. 

Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist 

Episcopal  Church  from  1850  to  1872. 


Cooperative  Agencies  319 

former  nearly  500,000,000,  while  its  six  periodicals  have 
had  an  aggregate  circulation  of  more  than  260,000,000. 

Before  this  gigantic  total  of  nearly  a  billion  issues  of 
Christian  Hterature,  the  work  of  the  best  writers  of  the 
Church,  cheap,  yet  attractive,  every  page  a  bit  of  the 
leaven  of  the  Kingdom,  the  mind  is  bewildered  in  its 
effort  to  trace  these  countless  messengers  of  healing  and 
light  as  they  compass  the  land  and  the  world.  How  many 
eyes  have  been  opened  to  the  truth;  how  many  hearts 
comforted  by  its  promises;  how  many  young  minds 
sweetened  with  wholesome  reading,  and  safeguarded 
against  the  poison  of  a  satanic  press;  how  many  cabins 
and  camps,  how  many  mines  and  ranches,  how  many 
sunless  attics  that  had  no  other  light  have  been  cheered 
by  the  Bible  and  the  tract,  that  came  hand  in  hand  from 
these  two  great  Christian  presses  in  New  York — what 
tongue  can  tell?  only  heaven  ^dll  reveal.  The  leaves  of 
these  twin  societies  have  been  literally  for  the  healing 
of  the  nation.  The  home  missionary  would  be  shorn 
of  half  his  power  without  them  and  home-missionary 
churches  would  be  poor  indeed  without  their  powerful 
aid. 

The  American  Sunday  School  Union,  which  took  its 
present  form  in  1824,  is  another  agency  of  immense  power 
in  the  leavening  of  America.  Careful  inquiry  at  that 
time  failed  to  discover  more  than  100  Sunday-schools  in 
the  United  States,  and  most  of  these  were  in  connection 
with  churches.  Between  these  scattered  churches  tens 
of  thousands  of  children  were  growing  up  without  the 
least  rehgious  instruction  or  knowledge  of  the  Bible. 
It  was  the  office  of  the  Simday  School  Union  to  go  be- 
fore the  home-missionary  movement  and  prepare  this 
neglected  soil  for  the  planting  of  the  church.     In  its 


320  Leavening  the  Nation 

nearly  eighty  years  of  endeavor  it  has  opened  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  schools,  with  six  hundred  thousand 
teachers  and  between  four  and  five  million  scholars.  It 
has  distributed  Sunday-school  literature  to  the  value  of 
$9,000,000,  which  has  found  its  way  not  only  to  needy 
churches  and  schools,  but  "to  the  army  and  navy,  to 
prisons,  reformatories, penitentiaries,  and  lapsed  classes." 
Uncounted  conversions  have  resulted,  only  a  partial 
record  of  which  is  preserved.  During  the  first  eight 
years  of  its  history  (1824-1832),  the  number  of  its  con- 
verts was  estimated  to  be  50,000,  and  during  the  last  ten 
years  more  than  70,000  have  been  actually  reported. 
In  the  same  period  more  than  eleven  hundred  churches 
have  grown  out  of  the  schools  it  has  planted.  In  any 
estimate  of  leavening  forces  the  Sunday  School  Union 
must  be  awarded  a  place  of  great  influence  and  of  high 
honor. 

These  three  societies, — the  Bible,  the  Tract,  and  the 
Sunday-school, — were  all  organized  on  an  undenomina- 
tional basis,  and  on  that  basis  they  still  firmly  stand, 
testifying  that  underneath  all  distinctions  of  theology 
and  church  pohty  which  divide  our  American  Christen- 
dom the  Bible  is  one  for  all;  its  first  truths  for  the 
minds  of  the  young  are  the  same  for  all,  and  a  true 
Christian  literature  is  independent  of  sects  and  isms. 

One  of  the  first  needs  developed  by  early  home  mis- 
sions was  that  of  church  buildings  and  parsonages.  The 
infant  church  could  not  be  left  by  the  roadside  without 
a  roof  to  cover  it,  and  the  missionary  must  have  a  home 
to  insure  the  permanency  of  his  work  as  well  as  to  pro- 
mote its  efficiency.  So  obvious  do  these  needs  appear 
that  it  is  hard  to  understand  why  they  waited  so  long  for 
organized  recognition. 


Cooperative  Agencies  321 

The  Albany  Convention  of  1852,  the  first  general 
gathering  of  the  Congregational  churches  since  the  Cam- 
bridge Convention  of  1646,  had  for  a  leading  topic  on  its 
program:  "The  project  of  aiding  feeble  churches  at  the 
West  in  building  church  edifices."  The  Convention 
recommended  raising  $50,000  at  once  for  this  purpose, 
and  the  churches  responded  promptly  by  contributing 
$61,891;  with  this  for  a  fund  the  American  Congrega- 
tional Union  was  organized  to  carry  on  the  work.  Its 
nondescript  name  was  changed  in  1892,  to  one  more 
descriptive  of  its  nature,  and  it  is  now  known  as  the 
Congregational  Church  Building  Society.  The  relation 
between  the  missionary  societies  and  the  Building 
Society  is  of  the  very  closest  kind.  The  one  organizes 
the  church  and  supports  the  missionary ;  the  other  helps 
the  people  to  erect  their  house  of  worship.  In  recent 
years,  under  the  lead  of  Dr.  Wilham  M.  Taylor,  the 
department  of  parsonage  building  has  been  greatly 
developed,  and  all  over  the  West  and  in  many  parts  of 
the  South  and  East  are  to  be  seen  Congregational  meet- 
ing-houses, of  a  neat  but  not  costly  pattern,  and  beside 
them  comfortable  manses,  testifying  to  the  hberality  of 
the  stronger  churches  as  well  as  to  the  wisdom  and 
energy  of  the  Church  Building  Society. 

Its  method  is  threefold.  It  makes  grants  to  strug- 
gling churches  for  the  payment  of  last  bills  on  the  house 
of  worship,  requiring  only  an  annual  collection  in  return; 
it  loans  money  without  interest,  to  be  paid  back  in  five 
or  ten  years  as  the  church  gains  in  strength ;  and  it  loans 
money  on  the  same  terms  for  the  building  of  parsonages. 
Thus  part  of  its  fimds  continually  returns  to  its  treasury 
for  repeated  investment.  Its  work  is  not  confined  to 
coimtry  churches,  but  promising  city  enterprises  come 


322.  Leavening  the  Nation 

in  for  a  share  of  its  help.  During  these  fifty  years  since 
1853,  it  has  received  and  disbursed  $3,628,191  in  loans 
and  grants  for  3,282  houses  of  worship  and  781  par- 
sonages. During  this  period  its  affairs  have  been  di- 
rected by  Dr.  Ray  Palmer,  secretary  from  1866  to  1878; 
Dr.  Wm.  B.  Brown,  from  1878  to  1882;  and  by  Dr.  L.  H. 
Cobb,  who  took  office  in  1882  and  resigned  in  1902.  To 
no  other  agency  is  Congregational  Home  Missions  more 
deeply  indebted  than  to  the  Church  Building  Society. 

American  Baptists  were  long  without  any  organized 
plan  of  church  erection  on  home-missionary  ground. 
Weak  churches  appealed  to  the  stronger  for  help,  which 
was  cheerfully  rendered,  but  in  no  systematic  way  and 
in  no  sufficient  amount.  It  was  not  until  1852  that  the 
Home  Mission  Society  opened  its  treasury  for  special 
contributions  to  this  cause,  but  with  explicit  warning 
against  the  depletion  of  its  missionary  receipts.  The 
demand  so  far  exceeded  the  supply  that  in  1864,  $10,000 
were  appropriated  from  the  missionary  funds  for  church 
erection,  and  other  sums  at  a  later  date. 

An  effort  was  made  in  1866  to  raise  a  permanent  fund 
of  $500,000,  and  Dr.  E.  E.  L.  Taylor  was  appointed  to 
present  the  matter  to  the  churches.  The  effort  was  only 
partially  successful,  about  one  half  the  proposed  amount 
being  raised.  For  several  years  this  fund  was  used  for 
loans  exclusively  at  a  low  rate  of  interest,  which  was 
never  to  be  abated.  Experience,  however,  proved  that 
outright  gifts  were  in  many  instances  indispensable,  and 
it  became  necessary  in  1881  to  open  a  benevolent  depart- 
ment of  the  Church  Edifice  Fund  for  the  help  of  congre- 
gations which  could  not  afford  to  borrow  money  on  any 
terms.  Under  this  double  method  the  work  has  since 
been  carried  on.    Churches  in  perishing  need  receive 


Cooperative  Agencies  323 

gifts  of  money  to  build  their  sanctuaries :  churches  that 
promise  growth  receive  loans,  and  are  found  to  grow- 
stronger  by  the  necessity  thus  laid  upon  them  to  help 
themselves. 

Baptists  have  no  separate  chiu*ch-building  society,  and 
for  tliis  reason  the  cause  lacks  distinctness  in  their  plan 
of  church  benevolences.  The  Church  Building  Fund, 
which  has  increased  in  recent  years,  is  held  and  ad- 
ministered by  the  Home  Mission  Society,  and  by  this 
method  unity  is  thought  to  be  secured  and  economy  to 
be  served. 

The  Methodists  discovered  in  1864  the  necessity  of 
organized  effort  in  church  building.  The  General  Con- 
ference at  its  meeting  that  year  in  Pliiladelphia  took  ad- 
vanced ground  by  establishing  a  Church  Extension 
Society  "  to  secure  suitable  houses  of  public  worship 
and  such  other  church  property  as  may  promote  the 
general  design."  In  the  nearly  forty  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  that  action  was  taken,  $4,000,000  have 
been  expended  in  Methodist  church  erection.  Direct 
gifts  and  loans  are  its  method  of  help.  Since  the  estab- 
Ushment  of  the  Loan  Fund  more  than  a  million  dollars 
have  been  returned  and  over  10,000  churches  have  been 
aided.  Next  to  its  church-planting  activities,  nothing 
has  so  helpfully  contributed  to  the  success  of  Method- 
ism as  its  well-organized  system  of  church  extension. 

The  Presbyterians  of  America,  however,  were  the  first 
to  establish  a  permanent  agency  for  church  erection. 
For  forty  years  after  organized  home-missionary  effort 
began  the  need  of  such  an  agency  had  been  felt,  and  in 
1844  it  was  supplied  by  the  appointment  of  a  Board 
under  the  General  Assembly.  In  fifty-six  years  this 
Board  has  disbursed  $3,948,390  for  church,  chapel,  and 


324  Leavening  the  Nation 

manse  erection,  in  grants  and  loans  to  the  number  of 
6,574.  Its  own  estimate  of  the  value  of  the  work  to  the 
cause  of  national  evangehzation  would  probably  be 
echoed  by  every  other  branch  of  the  church:  "It  has 
reached  every  State  and  Territory  over  which  our  church 
extends.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  of  the  thousands 
of  congregations  that  within  fifty  years  God  has  per- 
mitted us  to  organize,  one  half  would  have  failed  for  the 
want  of  the  comfort  and  the  grace  of  spiritual  homes  in 
which  to  gather  had  not  the  church  in  its  wisdom  in- 
augurated and  sustained  the  work  of  the  Board  of  Church 
Erection." 

The  close  alliance  of  the  Sunday  School  Union  with 
home  missions  in  general  has  been  already  noted.  Even 
more  intimate  is  that  of  the  denominational  Sunday- 
school  societies  which  have  sprung  up  in  later  years. 
The  Congregational  Sunday  School  and  Pubhshing 
Society  is  an  evolution  from  1825.  Beginning  then  as  a 
Union  work,  in  seven  years  the  Baptist,  Methodist,  and 
Episcopal  partners  had  withdrawn;  the  union  feature 
was  abandoned  for  the  denominational,  and  the  name 
adopted  was  the  Massachusetts  Sabbath  School  Society. 
Later,  in  1868,  this  was  consolidated  with  the  Congrega- 
tional Board  of  Publication,  and  has  ever  since  borne  its 
present  designation.  Under  two  departments,  mission- 
ary and  business,  it  serves  the  denomination  by  pro- 
moting Sunday-school  organization  and  education,  and 
by  publishing  Uterature  in  explanation  and  support  of 
the  Congregational  faith  and  pohty. 

Its  superintendents  and  missionaries,  numbering  about 
forty,  and  spread  over  the  whole  country  from  New 
England  to  the  Pacific  and  Alaska,  are  carefully  in- 
structed  to   improve   existing   schools;   to   plant  new 


Cooperative  Agencies  325 

schools  where  Congregational  churches  may  be  hope- 
fully organized;  to  establish  mission  schools  where  they 
may  be  mothered  by  Congregational  churches;  and  to 
reorganize  schools  that  may  have  been  abandoned. 

The  immense  value  of  such  cooperation  to  Congrega- 
tional Home  Missions  needs  no  argument.  Since  1883 
the  Society  has  organized  nearly  8,000  schools  and  gath- 
ered into  them  350,000  persons,  young  and  old,  for  the 
study  of  the  Bible,  and  out  of  them  have  grown  in  that 
period  830  Congregational  churches.  Other  denomi- 
nations have  reaped  a  frequent  advantage  from  this 
work,  and  many  communities  destined  to  wait  for  years 
the  coming  of  a  church,  have  been  supplied  with  its  best 
possible  substitute  in  the  Sunday-schools  of  this  society. 

Almost  identical  in  its  method  with  that  of  the  Con- 
gregationalists  is  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Publication 
and  Sabbath  School  Work,  with  its  two  departments — 
missionary  and  business.  Something  of  its  helpful  minis- 
try may  be  seen  in  the  fact  that  during  the  present  year 
it  has  organized  773  schools,  more  than  two  a  day,  and 
has  reorganized  388 — a  total  of  1,161  schools,  with  an 
aggregate  membership  of  3,916  teachers  and  35,944 
scholars.  It  has  at  present  under  its  care  2,134  schools; 
of  which  1,703  have  no  connection  with  any  church,  and 
1 ,762  have  no  building  of  their  own  in  which  to  gather. 
Sixty-six  churches  grew  out  of  these  schools  last  year;  of 
which  fifty-four  were  Presbyterian.  During  the  past 
five  years,  the  total  number  of  churches  from  such  schools 
has  been  1,094;  of  which  651  are  Presbyterian  and  443 
of  other  denominations. 

It  is  not  possible  to  speak  at  length  of  Baptist,  Metho- 
dist, Episcopal,  and  Reformed  methods  and  agencies 
of  the  same  kind.      Sufficient  to  say  that  all  of  these 


326  Leavening  the  Nation 

churches  recognize  the  interdependence  of  church  plant- 
ing and  Sunday-school  gathering;  that  the  school  is 
often  the  germ  out  of  which  new  churches  spring;  and 
that  the  health  and  the  very  life  of  the  church  are  found 
to  depend  upon  the  school  quite  as  much  as  the  school 
upon  the  church.  In  every  branch  of  the  evangehcal 
body  this  mutual  reliance  is  now  clearly  seen  and  ac- 
knowledged, and  there  is  as  little  danger  of  rivalry  be- 
tween the  claims  of  church  planting  and  Sunday-school 
extension  as  between  the  river  and  the  spring. 

Christian  education,  while  its  claim  as  a  cooperative 
agency  in  Home  Missions  is  beyond  dispute,  yet  it  is  also 
quite  distinctly  one  of  the  most  legitimate  fruits  of 
church  planting.  As  such  we  prefer  to  reserve  its  treat- 
ment for  the  closing  chapter  on  the  ''  Fruits  of  Home 
Missions." 

No  review  of  cooperative  agencies  would  be  complete 
without  grateful  recognition  of  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association,  and  the  immense  and  blessed  results  of 
its  work.  The  idea  of  the  Association  came  from  London, 
where  it  took  practical  form  in  1844.  Boston  was  the 
cradle  of  the  first  American  experiment,  in  1851,  and  two 
years  ago  in  Boston  the  American  semicentennial  of  that 
event  was  celebrated  with  great  enthusiasm. 

What  have  these  fifty  years  of  consecrated  history 
accomplished  towards  the  leavening  of  a  nation?  The 
first  answer  to  such  a  question  should  be  the  heartiest 
recognition  of  a  fact;  namely,  that  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association,  when  it  might  have  been  easily 
tempted  to  a  contrary  course,  has  loyally  aligned  itself 
with  the  church;  has  conducted  all  its  work  in  the  name 
of  the  church;  and  has  sought  to  make  all  its  multiplied 
agencies  contributory  to  the  life  of  the  church.     In  this 


Cooperative  Agencies  327 

it  has  found  its  power,  and  by  this  attitude  it  has  won  for 
itself  the  unfeigned  confidence  and  love  of  the  nainistry 
and  the  membership  of  the  American  churches. 

The  blessing  of  this  association  to  the  young  men  of 
America  has  been  immeasurable.  It  began  at  a  time 
when  the  word  "apprentice"  and  the  domestic  protec- 
tion which  that  word  often  secured  to  the  homeless  clerk 
were  becoming  obsolete.  "The  employee  was  only  a 
'hand,*  and  there  was  danger  that  the  employer  would, 
forget  that  he  had  also  a  heart  and  a  soul."  ^  This  was 
the  exigency  which  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Associa- 
tion came  to  supply;  and  nobly  it  has  fulfilled  its  trust. 

In  these  fifty  years  its  separate  organizations  have 
come  to  number  nearly  1,600,  with  an  aggregate  member- 
ship of  323,224,  of  which  nearly  40,000  are  juniors. 
These  organizations  hold  property  and  buildings  and 
funds  to  the  amount  of  over  $24,000,000,  enabling  them 
to  do  for  young  men  a  work  in  physical,  intellectual, 
social,  moral,  and  rehgious  Hues  almost  incalculable. 
Gymnasiums,  athletics,  and  outings;  reading-rooms, 
debating  clubs,  libraries,  Uterary  circles,  lectures,  and  edu- 
cational classes;  Bible  classes,  rehgious  training-schools, 
prayer-meetings,  missionary  studies,  industrial  classes, 
and  bureaus  of  employment — these  are  only  part  of  the 
agencies  employed  by  the  Association  to  stimulate, 
guide,  and  safeguard  young  men  parted  from  their 
homes  and  exposed  to  the  temptations  of  business  life. 

But  the  Association  does  not  stop  here.  It  carries  its 
work  into  colleges,  universities,  and  preparatory  schools. 
Here  also  yoimg  men  and  boys  are  set  free  from  the  re- 
straints of  home,  and  cut  off  from  its  helpful  sympathy; 

'  L.  W.  Bacon,  "  History  of  American  Christianity,"  p.  364. 


328  Leavening  the  Nation 

and  to  them  thus  exposed  comes  the  Association,  with 
the  approval  of  principals  and  teachers,  bringing  its 
Bible  classes,  its  prayer  and  social  meetings,  and  its  mis- 
sionary studies.  The  Association  is  represented  in  col- 
leges and  schools  by  a  membership  of  170,000. 

Nor  does  it  stop  even  here.  One  class  of  men  pecul- 
iarly subject  both  to  danger  and  to  neglect  it  seeks  out 
on  the  railroads  of  the  country.  Here  it  has  gathered 
over  170  organizations,  including  a  total  membership 
of  about  50,000  men,  for  whom  it  supphes  reading,  en- 
tertainment, gymnastic  exercise,  literary  culture,  rest- 
rooms,  baths,  hospital  treatment,  and  Bible  study. 

The  Army  and  Navy  have  not  been  overlooked  in  its 
ministry.  More  than  80,000  at  post  or  station  are  enrolled 
in  its  organizations.  For  the  past  year  632  army  points, 
from  Cuba  to  Alaska  and  from  the  Maritime  Provinces 
westward  across  the  Continent  to  Hawaii  and  the  Philip- 
pines, report  some  phases  of  Association  work  in  opera- 
tion. It  is  no  respecter  of  color,  race,  or  age.  In  its 
Negro  department  is  a  membership  of  3,514;  its  Indian 
membership  is  nearly  2,000,  and  about  40,000  boys  are 
brought  under  its  helpful  ministry. 

But  this  review  of  cooperating  agencies  must  have  an 
end,  not  for  want  of  material  but  for  lack  of  space.  The 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  fashioned  on  the 
same  working  principle  as  the  Young  Men's,  but  with 
special  adaptations  to  its  own  work;  the  Young  People's 
Christian  Endeavor  Society,  girdling  the  earth  with  an 
army  of  organized  Christian  youth,  the  hope  of  the 
future  church;  the  Salvation  Army,  "  which  takes  hold 
of  drunkards  and  harlots,  of  thieves  and  robbers,  and 
by  the  power  of  Christian  love  and  hfe  transforms  them 
into  respectable,  honest,  pure,  and  trustworthy  men  and 


Cooperative  Agencies  329 

women";  Leagues  for  Social  Service;  Guilds  and 
Brotherhoods;  Workingmen's  Clubs  and  Settlements; 
Boys'  Brigades  and  Kings'  Daughters;  Temperance 
Circles  and  Homes  for  everybody;  Homes  for  working- 
girls,  for  newsboys  and  bootblacks,  for  every  sort  and 
condition  of  humanity  that  is  homeless,  friendless,  and 
unprivileged — these  all,  and  many  besides,  are  both 
fruits  of  the  church  life  and  partners  and  cooperators 
with  the  church  in  leavening  the  nation. 

Home  Missions,  whUe  it  goes  on  its  chosen  way,  open- 
ing fresh  fountains  of  church  life  in  every  gathering  com- 
munity, must  ever  bless  these  many  and  multiplying 
agencies  which  spring  up  in  its  path,  confirming  its  work, 
protecting  and  nurturing  its  churches  and  sounding  the 
calls  to  Christian  service  by  which  churches  grow  into 
the  spirit  and  likeness  of  their  Master,  Christian  civili- 
zation of  the  twentieth  century  is  one  body,  having 
many  members,  in  which  the  eye  cannot  say  to  the 
hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee,  nor  again  the  head  to 
the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of  you. 


XXI 

THE  FRUITS 

The  test  of  leaven  is  its  quickening  power  when 
hidden  in  the  meal.  A  distinguished  evangelical  leader, 
for  many  years  a  prominent  teacher  of  the  unevan- 
gelical  school,  confesses  that  his  eyes  were  partially 
opened  to  the  truth  by  discovering  the  powerlessness 
of  his  earlier  faith  to  propagate  itself.  "Missions  are 
languid  or  unknown,"  is  his  final  verdict  upon  a  creed 
which  he  had  long  sought  to  vitalize,  but  out  of  which 
the  God-man  had  been  cast.  The  vitality  of  every 
seed  is  its  power  of  reproducing  itself.  If,  then,  we 
shall  estimate  the  vitality  of  the  home-missionary  idea 
by  the  measure  of  its  quickening  and  propagating 
power,  we  might  challenge  the  nineteenth  century  to 
produce  any  parallel,  of  its  kind,  to  the  productiveness 
of  that  httle  handful  of  corn  which  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts,  in  1798-99,  began  to  scatter  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Hudson. 

In  many  previous  pages  we  have  followed  the 
organized  home-missionary  movements  of  Baptists, 
Congregationalists,  and  Presbyterians,  with  glances, 
such  as  space  permitted,  at  the  work  of  Methodists, 
Episcopahans,  and  the  Reformed  Church.  But  the 
real  volume  of  home-missionary  enterprise  for  the  last 
hundred  years  has  scarcely  been  touched.     Not  these 

330 


The  Fruits  331 

six  alone,  but  more  than  thirty  organized  home-mission- 
ary societies,  all  of  them  evangelical  and  all  national, 
have  sprung  from  that  humble  planting  of  1798. 

These  more  than  thirty  societies  have  gathered  and 
invested  $140,000,000  in  the  enterprise  of  leavening 
America.  Their  chief  agent  has  been  the  church,  with 
its  ordained  preacher  and  its  divinely  appointed  ordi- 
nances; and  for  the  church  these  milUons  have  been 
given.  This  total,  however,  takes  no  account  of  co- 
operating agencies,  called  into  being  by  the  church 
and  its  missionary  work.  Add  these:  Sunday-school 
planting;  Bible  and  tract  printing;  denominational 
literature,  church  building,  and  Christian  education, 
which  by  careful  inquiry  are  found  to  have  expended 
$150,000,000  more,  and  the  grand  total  for  Home 
Missions,  root  and  branch,  in  organized  form,  has  been 
$290,000,000.  Not  a  dollar  of  this  immense  fund  has 
been  paid,  in  any  commercial  sense,  for  value  received; 
all  of  it  was  given,  a  free-will  offering  of  Christian  people 
to  mark  their  intense  conviction  of  the  peril  of  a  nation 
without  the  gospel,  and  their  faith  in  its  leavening 
power.  If  to  this  sum  were  to  be  added  the  more 
personal  and  private  contributions  of  Christian  people, 
who  in  addition  to  the  long  arm  of  a  missionary  society 
have  chosen  often  to  be  their  own  almoners,  the  total 
named  would  be  vastly  increased;  and  all  this  from  the 
one-hundred-and-fifty-doUar  seed  of  sixteen  women  of 
Boston  in  1800;  from  the  five-dollar  seed  of  the  New 
Hampshire  Cent  Institution  of  1804,  and  from  the  six 
hundred  dollars  in  the  treasury  of  the  Connecticut 
Society  when  it  began  its  organized  warfare  against 
barbarism  in  the  new  settlements.  Is  it  possible  to 
contemplate  this  vast  fruitage  of  organized  effort  and 


33^  Leavening  the  Nation 

doubt  that  those  few  kernels  of  early  seed  were  gifted 
with  divine  vitality? 

Thus  much  for  the  growth  of  organization.  But  what 
have  these  organizations  and  their  millions  accomplished, 
and  what  of  visible  fruits  remain  to  justify  their  cost? 
It  is  a  fact  not  generally  known,  and  when  known  not 
sufficiently  appreciated,  that  the  evangelical  bodies  of 
the  United  States  trace  most  of  their  church  organiza- 
tions directly  to  home  missions.  Congregationahsts 
admit  that  four  fifths  of  their  churches  are  of  home- 
missionary  origin.  The  proportion  would  be  greater 
were  it  not  that  hundreds  of  Congregational  churches 
were  born  before  home  missions  began.  Presbyterians 
confess  that  nine  tenths  of  their  churches  are  of  home- 
missionary  planting.^  Baptist,  Methodist,  and  Episco- 
pal estimates  range  from  five  sixths  to  nine  tenths. 
Consider  for  a  moment  what  such  ratios  mean:  that 
these  far-spreading  ecclesiastical  bodies  have  grown 
strong  in  church  power  not  by  their  own  help  but  by 
home-missionary  aid,  the  few  strong  bearing  the  in- 
firmities of  the  many  weak. 

When  we  have  taken  in  the  fact  that  four  fifths,  five 
sixths,  seven  eighths,  and  even  nine  tenths  of  the  evan- 
gehcal  churches  in  the  United  States  which  now  com- 
pass the  land  came  to  their  birth  or  were  saved  from 
early  death  by  home-missionary  succor,  it  comes  to  be 
a  most  pertinent  question.  Where  and  what  would  these 
great  ecclesiastical  bodies  be  but  for  that  helpful  agency? 
To  more  than  one  of  them,  instead  of  the  thriving 
churches  and  kindred  agencies  which  now  dot  the  land, 
their  only  memorials  would  be  a  few  sequestered  ceme- 

'  Secretary  C.  L.  Thompson,  Presbyterian  Board  Home  Mis- 
sions. 


The  Fruits  333 

teries  full  of  early  graves,  over  which  might  be  justly 
written  the  inscription,   "Sacred  to  the  memory  of  the 

Denomination,  which  died  of  poverty  and  neglect.". 

These  unquestioned  facts  should  be  less  novel  than  they 
are  to  many  well-informed  Christians.  A  great  scholar  in 
church  history  confessed  to  the  writer,  when  first  made 
acquainted  with  them,  "I  never  dreamed  of  it."  To  the 
credit  of  home  missions,  therefore,  should  stand  the  un- 
doubted truth  that  an  overwhelming  majority  of  evan- 
gelical churches  owe  their  being  to  its  nurture  and  care. 

And  what  does  such  a  fact  mean  in  the  rehgious  de- 
velopment of  the  country?  Figures  here  are  eloquent; 
they  palpitate  with  life.  In  the  year  1800,  the  United 
States  had  one  evangehcal  communicant  in  14.50  of 
the  population.  In  1850,  that  ratio  had  grown  to  one 
in  6.57;  in  1870,  to  one  in  5.78;  in  1880,  to  one  in  5; 
in  1890,  to  one  in  4.53;  and  in  1900,  to  one  in  4.25.  In 
other  words,  evangelical  church  membership  increased 
three  and  one  half  times  faster  than  the  population  in 
less  than  a  hundred  years.  Between  1800  and  1890, 
population  increased  11.8  fold.  In  the  same  period, 
evangehcal  communicants  increased  thirty-eight  fold. 
From  1850  to  1890,  population  increased  170  per  cent, 
while  evangelical  communicants  increased  291  per  cent.* 

To  these  figures  of  Dr.  Dorchester,  their  indefatigable 
compiler  adds  the  comment:  "This  exhibit  of  rehgious 
progress  cannot  be  paralleled  in  the  history  of  God's 
kingdom  in  any  land  or  any  age."  Was  it  only  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  ago  that  Voltaire  in  Geneva  had 
said:  "Before  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Christianity  will  have  disappeared  from  the    earth"? 

'Daniel  Dorchester,  "Problem  of  Religious  Progress,"  p.  694, 


334  Leavening  the  Nation 

Was  it  less  than  a  hundred  years  ago  that  American 
infidels  were  prophesying  that  the  church  would  not 
survive  two  generations  in  this  country?  But  "the 
Church  is  an  anvil  that  has  worn  out  many  a  hammer." 
In  defiance  of  these  dismal  auguries,  between  1800  and 
1850  the  average  yearly  increase  of  evangeUcal  com- 
municants was  63,302;  between  1850  and  1870,  twenty 
years,  157,170;  between  1870  and  1880,  ten  years, 
339,258;  between  1880  and  1890,  ten  years,  375,765; 
and  for  four  years,  between  1890  and  1894,  348,582,  the 
prophecy  of  a  larger  average  than  ever  for  the  last  ten 
years  of  the  century.  It  is  no  vmseemly  boast  but  an 
obvious  truth  that  by  far  the  larger  part  of  this  re- 
markable growth  is  due  to  the  direct  agency  of  Ameri- 
can Home  Missions,  since  in  its  own  carefully  planted 
gardens  most  of  that  growth  has  taken  place. 
'  It  has  often  been  asked,  sometimes  with  the  accent  of 
doubt,  whether  the  vast  volume  of  missionary  aid  sent 
from  the  East  into  the  West  has  not  discouraged  self- 
help  and  tended  to  pauperize  the  aided  churches.  It 
w^ould  be  a  dark  spot  on  our  feast  of  charities  if  this  were 
true;  but  it  is  not  true.  This  danger  was  early  foreseen 
and  wisely  averted.  For  a  few  years  at  the  beginning, 
home-missionary  policy  was  exposed  to  that  very  peril. 
The  early  societies  of  New  England  neither  required 
nor  allowed  their  missionaries  to  draw  any  part  of  their 
support  from  the  congregations  to  which  they  minis- 
tered. A  better  plan  for  entailing  pauperism  could  not 
have  been  devised.  The  people  were  to  be  treated  as 
helpless,  which  treatment  would  have  made  them  so. 
But  this  error,  so  deadly  to  self-sacrifice  and  even  to 
self-respect,  was  soon  discerned,  and  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  missionary  century,  the  iavariable  condition  of 


The  Fruits  33S 

receiving  any  missionary  help  whatever  has  been  the 
largest  possible  measure  of  self-help  on  the  part  of  the 
aided  church.  The  old  system  was  to  bear  the  whole 
burden  for  the  people;  the  new  system  proposed  to 
share  the  burden  with  the  people.  And  nothing  for 
many  years  past  has  been  more  fundamental  in  home- 
missionary  policy  than  its  effort  to  steadily  reduce  the 
measure  of  missionary  aid  to  a  vanishing  point  by  build-, 
ing  up  the  grace  of  self-help  to  the  stature  of  comple^ 
independence.  -"""^ 

Under  this  wiser  and  only  true  policy,  church  after 
church  has  received  the  aid  of  its  missionary  society 
and  graduated  from  its  rolls.  State  after  State  has 
passed  over  from  the  condition  of  a  beneficiary  to  that 
of  an  auxiliary.  Pauperism  has  been  avoided,  self- 
respect  has  been  maintained,  and  thousands  of  churches 
that  were  once  the  grateful  recipients  of  a  society's 
bounty  are  now  cheerful  contributors  to  its  missionary 
funds. 

Yet,  gratifying  as  this  result  has  been  among  the 
fruits,  even  more  than  this  is  true.  The  churches  of 
the  East  have  not  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  home 
missions  as  a  paying  investment,  in  any  business  sense, 
dollar  for  dollar.  Its  spiritual,  moral,  and  patriotic 
returns  have  been  generally  acknowledged  and  highly 
valued;  but,  financially,  gifts  to  home  missions  have 
been  treated  as  so  much  money  out  for  so  much  good 
of  a  higher  kind  received.  But  a  recent  careful  investi- 
gation by  one  skilled  in  inquiries  of  this  kind  presents 
the  matter  in  a  new  light.  His  conclusions  relate  to 
only  one  of  our  large  home-missionary  boards;  but  pre- 
sumably they  are  true,  in  varying  degrees,  of  them  all. 
In  a  grand  total  of  about  $1,000,000  contributed  last 


33^  Leavening  the  Nation 

year  by  the  churches  of  this  one  denomination  for  home 
missions,  he  makes  it  clear  that  one  half  of  the  entire 
amount  came  from  churches  which  now  are,  or  at  some 
time  have  been,  home-missionary  churches;  and,  what 
is  more  significant,  his  inquiry  reveals  that  in  the  last 
twenty-five  years  the  churches  which  now  are,  or  at 
some  time  were,  home-missionary  churches  have  con- 
tributed more  money  for  their  own  denominational 
missionary  work  of  all  kinds  than  the  entire  century 
of  home-missionary  endeavor  has  cost  to  that  denomi- 
nation. 

Here  is  a  surprising  result  and  a  wonderful  testimony 
to  the  paying  power  of  home-missionary  investment. 
Were  the  only  returns  of  the  effort  such  as  might  be 
found  in  the  record  of  churches  and  Sunday-schools 
formed,  in  the  growth  of  evangehcal  forces,  and  in  the 
general  uplifting  of  society,  such  results  would  be  an 
ample  reward  to  those  who  have  so  freely  sustained  the 
effort;  for  these  were  all  that  were  ever  expected.  But 
to  discover,  in  addition,  that  the  total  expenditure  for  a 
hundred  years  of  home  missions  has  been  made  good 
in  twenty-five  years  by  its  own  children;  and  that  these 
same  churches  called  to  life  by  home  missions  are  now 
supplying  one  half  the  money  needed  to  carry  on  its 
beneficent  work — such  discoveries  so  far  transcend  any 
hope  or  dream  of  the  home-missionary  fathers  as  to 
make  them  seem  almost  incredible.  Any  business 
house  with  branches  in  forty  States  and  Territories 
that  should  be  able  to  show  a  similar  return  for  capital 
invested  would  be  rated  high  in  the  agencies  of  the 
commercial  world.  Home  missions  was  never  begun 
with  any  eye  to  financial  returns,  yet  in  less  than  a 
hundred  years  it  has  created  and  reared  a  constituency 


The  Fruits  337 

of  grateful  children  which  pay  back  in  twenty-five 
years,  dollar  for  dollar,  all  that  home  missions  has  cost 
in  a  hundred.  Not  only  has  pauperism  been  escaped 
and  self-respect  maintained,  but  fountains  of  bounty 
have  been  opened  which  are  feeding  with  their  ten 
thousand  rills  the  great  rivers  of  Christian  benevolence. 

Thus  much  for  direct  results.  But  incidental  fruits 
are  even  more  suggestive.  From  the  top  of  Mt.  Wash- 
ington on  a  clear  day  in  summer  a  visitor  may  trace  the 
course  of  streams  that  do  not  betray  their  existence  by 
one  sparkle  in  the  sun.  Their  presence  is  self-revealed 
by  the  deeper  green  that  fringes  their  banks;  by  the 
taller  trees  that  meet  over  their  depths ;  by  the  laughing 
harvests  that  run  down  on  either  side  to  greet  them.  So 
with  this  broad  river  of  home  missions;  it  has  gone  on 
its  way,  never  deviating  from  its  direct  and  special 
errand;  but  in  its  course  it  has  watered  and  enriched 
the  land,  until,  far  and  wide,  have  sprung  up  fruits  and 
blessings  that  had  no  place  in  the  thought,  nor  even  in 
the  dreams,  of  the  home- missionary  fathers. 

Christian  Education  was  no  part  of  the  plan  of  Con- 
necticut and  Massachusetts  in  1798,  nor  of  the  General 
Assembly  in  1802;  and  but  a  small  fraction  of  home- 
missionary  money  has  ever  been  diverted  from  church 
planting  to  the  founding  of  colleges  and  academies. 
Yet  in  the  entire  range  of  agencies  that  have  cooper- 
ated with  home  missions,  and  among  its  most  legitimate 
fruits.  Christian  Education  stands  in  the  front  rank. 
Eighteen  years  after  the  first  prehistoric  home  mis- 
sionaries landed  at  Plymouth  and  set  up  their  church, 
Harvard  College  became  a  necessity.  Yale,  Dartmouth, 
Princeton,  Brown,  Amherst,  Williams,  Bowdoin,  Mid- 
dlebury,  Holyoke,  are  all  children  of  the  Church  and 


338  Leavening  the  Nation 

had  their  birth  in  a  religious  movement.  At  the  West 
particularly,  and  all  through  the  home-missionary  belt, 
the  same  law  has  perpetually  declared  itself.  Begin  to 
plant  churches  anywhere  and  the  next  demand  is  a 
Christian  college.  The  quickening  of  religious  life 
stimulates  intellectual  desire,  and  with  an  apprehension 
of  the  true  meaning  of  life  and  its  relations  to  the  future, 
the  ambition  to  make  the  most  of  that  life  and  its  oppor- 
tunities becomes  a  passion  that  will  not  be  denied. 

The  fathers  of  New  England  recognized  the  law  when, 
sixteen  years  after  home  missions  began,  they  organ- 
ized the  Congregational  Education  Society.  It  has  quali- 
fied its  name  more  than  once,  but  has  never  lost  sight  of 
its  twofold  purpose — to  follow  up  the  church  with  the 
Christian  college,  and  to  recruit  its  ministry  by  aiding 
worthy  young  men  to  prepare  for  it.  The  hst  of  its 
beneficiaries  would  be  a  long  one,  and  would  contain 
the  names  of  men  famihar  in  every  Congregational 
household  of  the  land  for  the  service  they  have  ren- 
dered to  the  church  and  to  the  world.  A  very  large 
proportion  of  home-missionary  pastors  could  never  have 
reached  the  ministry  without  its  helping  hand.  Other 
church  bodies  besides  the  Congregationalists  have  felt 
the  compelhng  power  of  the  same  law.  All  of  them  have 
been  driven  to  follow  the  enterprise  of  church  planting 
with  organized  forms  of  college  building  and  ministerial 
education,  until  in  every  part  of  the  home-missionary 
belt  no  considerable  group  of  churches  can  be  found 
from  which  a  straight  path  does  not  lead  to  some  Chris- 
tian academy,  college,  or  seminary  of  learning,  centrally 
located  for  the  benefit  of  these  churches,  and  cherished 
by  them  as  a  sacred  ally  of  their  own  work. 

Call  the  roll  of  Western  colleges  known  as  "Congre- 


,  The  Fruits  339 

gational "  because  their  management  is  chiefly  in  the 
hands  of  Congregationahsts,  and  known  as  "Christian" 
because  they  undertake  the  education  of  the  whole  man, 
body,  mind,  and  spirit :  scarcely  one  can  be  named  that 
is  not  indebted  for  its  birth  and  early  nurture  to  the 
home  missionary; — Marietta,  the  child  of  Luther  E. 
Bingham,  our  earUest  missionary  in  Southern  Ohio; 
Illinois,  planted  by  John  M.  Ellis,  one  of  the  first  two 
missionaries  in  that  State ;  Beloit,  nurtured  in  its  infancy 
by  Aratus  Kent  and  Stephen  Peet,  both  home  mission- 
aries; Washburn,  started  by  three  missionaries  and 
three  delegates  from  their  churches;  Oberlin,  the 
thought  of  John  J.  Shipherd,  the  young  missionary  at 
Elyria;  Rollins,  warmed  to  life  by  Edward  P.  Hooker 
and  SuUivan  F.  Gale,  the  home-missionary  leaders  of 
Florida;  Ripon,  saved  and  borne  on  to  success  by 
Walcott,  Lamb,  Chapin,  and  Miter,  all  home  mission- 
aries; Whitman,  named  for  a  missionary  hero,  the 
dream  of  another  missionary  hero,  Gushing  Eells,  who 
lived  to  reahze  his  own  vision,  and  presided  over  by  a 
later  missionary  leader,  Penrose;  Doane,  beginning  at 
Fontenelle  in  the  heroic  sacrifices  of  Reuben  Gaylord, 
Nebraska's  home-missionary  pioneer;  Iowa,  whose 
foundations  were  laid  by  Asa  Turner  and  the  Iowa  Band ; 
Carleton,  over  whose  infancy  Shedd,  Seccombe,  Hall, 
Brown,  Burt,  Willey,  and  Barnes,  all  veteran  home 
missionaries,  "prayed,  toiled,  and  sacrificed,"  and 
whose  President  for  thirty  years,  James  W.  Strong,  has 
been  for  all  these  years  also  President  of  Minnesota 
Home  Missions;  Wabash,  "with  John  M.  Ellis  again  in 
the  lead";  Knox,  at  once  the  child  of  home  missions 
and  the  mother  of  distinguished  home-missionary 
leaders  like  James  H.  Warren,  Benjamin  F.  Haskins, 


340  Leavening  the  Nation 

Alfred  L.  Riggs,  Joseph  E.  Roy,  and  James  Tompkins; 
Western  Reserve,  whose  seed  was  imported  from 
old  Connecticut  with  the  first  home  missionary  to 
New  Connecticut  in  1801;  Olivet  and  Tabor,  both 
daughters  of  Oberlin,  and  inheriting  to  the  full  its 
missionary  spirit;  Yankton,  the  monument  of  Joseph 
Ward,  Dakota's  great  missionary;  and  a  similar  record 
might  be  given  of  Pacific  and  Wheaton,  of  Drury  and 
Colorado,  of  Fairmount  and  Kingfisher,  of  Gates,  Fargo, 
Redfield,  and  Pomona,  and  of  academies  almost  with- 
out number. 

These  instances  are  drawn  from  Congregational 
history  only  because  of  the  writer's  greater  familiarity 
with  the  facts.  But  he  is  assured  that  equally  strong 
statements  would  be  true  of  fifty  Methodist  institutions, 
of  thirty  Presbyterian,  and  of  all  similar  colleges  and 
seminaries  of  Baptists  and  Episcopalians  on  home- 
missionary  ground.  By  home  missionaries  they  were 
conceived.  Home  missionaries  consecrated  them  with 
prayers.  Home  missionaries  divided  with  them  their 
scanty  salaries.  Home  missionaries  have  been  their 
presidents,  professors,  and  trustees,  and  home-mis- 
sionary churches  have  supphed  them  with  money  and 
with  students.  "  Home  missionaries  were  their  nursing 
fathers  and  home-missonary  churches  their  nursing 
mothers."  ^ 

We  cannot  contemplate  this  remarkable  growth  of 
educational  enterprise,  so  closely  identified  with  evan- 
gelistic progress,  and  not  be  impressed  with  a  new  sense 
of  the  vitahzing  power  of  home  missions.  And  the 
benefits  are  strictly  reciprocal.     If  Christian  colleges 

David  B.  Coe. 


The  Fruits  34i 

owe  their  being  to  the  churches  planted  by  home  mis- 
sions, not  less  do  the  churches  owe  their  continued  Ufe 
and  growth  to  Christian  Education.    Twenty  years  ago, 
on  a  map  published  by  the  then  president  of  Colorado 
College,  2,000  towns  are  indicated  where  graduates  of 
ten  Western  colleges  and    three  Western   theological 
seminaries   were   serving   as   home-missionary  pastors 
under   the   American   Home    Missionary   Society.  ^  In 
1  000  other  towns  the  graduates  of  these  institutions 
were  serving  under  other  societies,  and  not  less  than 
30,000  students  from  the  same  colleges  had  been  em- 
ployed as  teachers  in  15,000  towns  of  the  West.     Hand 
in  hand.  Home  Missions  and  Christian  Education  are 
sowing  and  reaping,  and  when  the  final  harvest  shall  be 
shouted  home  great  is  to  be  their  common  joy. 

But  the  incidental  fruits  of  home  missions  do  not  end 
with  education;  they  only  begin  there.     That  peerless 
interpreter  of  history,  Richard  Salter  Storrs,  once  de- 
clared in  his  own  pulpit:  "Home  Missions  saved  this 
country  once  and  will  save  it  again  if  necessary."     He 
was  not  referring  to  that  fmal  redemption  of  all  men 
and  of  all  lands  which  is  the  ultimate  hope  of  Christian 
missions,  but  to  the  civil  and  poUtical  rescue  of  the  na- 
tion in  a  season  of  deadly  peril.    Yet  the  fathers  of  New 
England,  when  they  began  their  merciful  ministry  to 
the  new  settlements,  had  no  thought  of  any  civil  or 
poUtical  issues  which  might  arise.     They  were  simply 
intent  on  giving  to  others  what  had  proved  to  be  a 
supreme  solace  to  themselves — the  blessing  of  the  gospel 
of  Christ. 

But  if,  absorbed  in  their  spiritual  purpose,  they 
thought  Uttle  of  its  collateral  value,  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  was  not  for  a  moment  suspended.    Every  mo- 


342  Leavening  the  Nation 

ment  it  was  true  that  in  a  government  by  the  people 
and  for  the  people  nothing  counts  for  so  much  as  high 
ideals  of  duty.  With  these  enthroned  in  the  thought 
and  life  of  its  citizens,  a  nation  may  meet  almost  any 
shock  from  within  or  from  without;  and  nothing  has 
yet  been  discovered  on  earth  or  revealed  from  heaven 
that  has  power  to  create  higher  ideals  of  duty  than 
Christianity  and  the  obligations  it  inculcates.  It  is 
thus  that  missionary  societies,  whose  sole  function  is 
the  planting  of  churches,  enter  into  the  hidden  life  of  a 
nation  in  ways  that  political  parties  cannot  enter,  and 
which  even  Christian  men  are  sometimes  slow  to  appre- 
ciate. Not  only  law,  order,  temperance,  respect  for  the 
Sabbath,  security  of  life  and  property,  and  the  claims  of 
humanity  are  thus  conserved  and  fostered,  but  the 
instinct  of  patriotism  itself,  in  which  the  very  life  of 
the  nation  consists,  finds  its  nursing  mother  in  the 
Church  of  Christ. 

This  collateral  value  of  Home  Missions  has  had  many 
illustrations  in  American  history.  It  was  a  home  mis- 
sionary who  proposed  and  advocated,  and  by  the 
weight  of  his  personal  influence  engrossed,  the  principle 
of  prohibition  in  the  State  constitutions  of  the  Dakotas; 
and  it  was  the  votes  of  a  church-educated  people  that 
made  it  law.  And  a  little  later,  when  the  Louisiana 
lottery,  being  driven  out  of  the  South,  sought  to  impose 
inself  on  the  new  State  of  North  Dakota,  it  was  the 
Christian  sentiment  of  the  people,  developed  by  years  of 
home-missionary  culture,  that  sent  that  deadly  vam- 
pire flying  out  of  North  Dakota  and  never  looking  back 
nor  staying  its  flight  until  it  reached  Central  America. 
Many  such  victories  of  a  Christianly  educated  pubhc 
sentiment,  distinctly  due  to  home-missionary  nurture, 


The  Fruits  343 

might  be  named;  but  they  all  merge  in  that  one  great 
crisis  which  shook  the  very  pillars  of  the  Nation  and 
would  have  crumbled  them  to  pieces,  says  Dr.  Storrs, 
but  for  the  saving  power  of  home  missions.  No  un- 
skilled hand  may  attempt  to  revise  or  comment  upon 
such  testimony  from  such  a  man:  "Home  Missions  saved 
this  country  once  and  will  save  it  again  if  necessary."  In 
its  grand  simplicity  let  it  stand  as  the  profound  con- 
viction of  a  master  in  Christian  history. 

Howell  Cobb  paid  an  unconscious  tribute  to  its  truth 
when  he  proposed  to  reconstruct  the  Union,  "with  New 
England,  Plymouth  Rock,  and  original  sin  left  out " ; 
and  a  less  chivalrous  orator  declared  to  the  same  effect: 
"There  would  never  have  been  a  war  if,  when  the  Pil- 
grims entered  Massachusetts  Bay,  instead  of  landing  on 
Plymouth  Rock  the  rock  had  landed  on  them."  Very 
likely;  for,  when  the  inevitable  struggle  came,  the 
meaning  and  value  of  sixty-five  years  of  church  planting 
in  the  West  and  Northwest  began  to  appear.  Every 
home-missionary  pulpit  flamed  with  patriotic  fire  and 
sounded  its  call  to  arms.  Congregations  and  Sunday- 
schools  were  decimated  by  enlistments.  From  a  careful 
inquiry  instituted  near  the  close  of  the  war,  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  the  home-missionary  churches  of  the  entire 
West,  on  both  sides  of  the  Mississippi,  "had  sent  into 
the  army  one  in  four  of  their  entire  male  membership, 
including  in  the  count  old  men,  invahds,  and  boys." 

Home-missionary  colleges  were  not  behind  the  churches 
in  patriotic  zeal.  To  the  first  call  of  President  Lincoln 
for  volunteers,  130  Oberlin  undergraduates  responded 
in  a  single  day.  Their  first  experience  in  battle  was 
at  Cross  Lanes,  West  Virginia,  where  their  captain  and 
twenty-nine  of  their  number  were  captured  and  borne 


344  Leavening  the  Nation 

away  to  untold  suffering  in  Southern  prisons.  But 
their  places  were  promptly  filled  by  other  students, 
and  the  Oberlin  Company  was  destined  to  take  part  in 
ten  great  battles  of  the  war;  among  them,  Winchester, 
Cedar  Mountain,  Chancellorsville,  Antietam,  Gettysburg, 
Lookout  Mountain,  and  Mission  Ridge.  "Taking  grad- 
uates and  undergraduates  together,"  says  the  late  Presi- 
dent Fair  child,  "it  was  estimated  that  not  less  than  850 
were  in  the  army  at  some  time  during  the  four  years." 
Beloit,  though  younger  than  Oberlin,  and  having  but  ten 
graduated  classes  at  the  opening  of  the  war,  has  the  same 
glorious  record.  Of  the  800  young  men  that  were  in 
college  or  had  been  connected  with  it,  more  than  one 
half  were  volunteers  in  the  Union  armies.  Iowa  sent 
out  many  of  its  choicest  graduates  and  students,  who 
distinguished  themselves  for  bravery,  and  several  rose 
to  places  of  honor.  More  than  half  the  undergraduates 
of  Knox  enlisted,  and  many  went  from  the  Academy  of 
whom  no  record  was  kept.  Of  graduates  and  under- 
graduates. Marietta  contributed  181  soldiers;  among 
whom  four  rose  to  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General,  nine- 
teen to  regimental  positions,  and  sixty  received  com- 
missions to  serve  as  company  officers.  "Western  Re- 
serve College,"  says  President  C.  F.  Thwing,  "practically 
closed  its  doors  for  the  time,  and  nearly  all  its  students 
entered  the  service,"  under  command  of  two  of  the 
professors.  Greater  love  of  country  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  he  lay  down  his  Ufe  in  its  service.  One  col- 
lege man  in  every  ten  of  those  enlisting  never  came  back. 
And  could  we  number  the  heroes  that  went  forth  from 
the  churches  and  schools  created  directly  by  home  mis- 
sions, and  who  fought  and  died  to  such  good  purpose, 
something  of  the  contribution  of  home  missions  to  the 


The  Fruits  345 

cause  of  Christian  patriotism  would  begin  to  be  under- 
stood. 

Yet  it  is  not  alone  on  the  perilous  edge  of  battle  that 
patriotism  is  tested.  Peace  has  its  battles  and  victories 
no  less  than  war.  Eliminate  from  Western  society  the 
silent  moral  forces,  all  of  them  practically  the  creation 
of  home-missionary  churches ;  the  respect  for  law 
which  they  inculcate;  the  temperance  they  practice  and 
help  to  enforce;  the  safe-guarding  of  the  young;  the  se- 
curity of  property  and  life;  the  cultivation  of  high  moral 
ideals;  the  claims  of  humanity  which  they  teach  and 
practice; — blot  out  all  those  forces  which  make  up  the 
morale  of  a  Commonwealth,  socially,  religiously,  and 
politically,  and  something  of  the  immeasurable  value 
of  the  home-missionary  movement,  as  related  to  order, 
morality,  civic  virtue,  and  national  prosperity,  would 
be  appreciated. 

Very  little  of  this  story  has  yet  been  published  to  the 
world.  The  literature  of  home  missions  is  astonishingly 
small.  Its  chief  actors  have  been  too  busy  leavening 
the  nation  to  write  its  history  or  biography.  The  story 
of  "The  Iowa  Band,"  by  Dr.  Ephraim  Adams;  the 
biographies  of  Gaylord,  Atkinson,  Eells,  Turner, 
Pickett;  "A  Wind  from  the  Holy  Spirit,"  by  Mont- 
gomery, which  has  been  called  a  "Christian  classic"; 
"Presbyterian  Home  Missions,"  by  Dr.  Doyle;  "Bap- 
tist Home  Missions,"  by  Dr.  Morehouse;  and  "The 
Minute  Man  on  the  Frontier,"  by  Puddefoot,  are  the 
first  fruits  of  a  rich  literature  yet  to  be  pubhshed :  while 
one  book,  facile  princeps  of  its  kind,  and  a  library  in 
itself,  has  done  more,  perhaps,  to  stimulate  an  intelli- 
gent patriotism  than  any  other  book  ever  pubUshed. 
"Our  Country,"  by  Josiah  Strong,  was  written  by  a 


346  Leavening  the  Nation 

home  missionary  and  is  evolved  from  home-missionary 
experiences.  It  was  prepared  at  the  cost  of  the  Ameri- 
can Home  Missionary  Society  and  first  pubhshed  by 
that  Society.  Parts  of  it  have  been  printed  in  many 
forms  and  widely  scattered  by  the  daily  press.  It  has 
been  translated  into  foreign  tongues,  and  not  less  than 
half  a  million  copies,  as  a  whole  or  in  parts,  in  one  tongue 
or  another,  have  been  circulated.  Its  masterly  array 
of  facts  and  its  vivid  portrayal  of  the  possibilities  and 
perils  of  America  have  had  an  untold  influence  in  pro- 
moting a  sane  and  enlightened  regard  for  their  country 
among  the  people  of  the  United  States. 

One  further  incident  in  the  story  of  American  home 
missions  may  furnish  a  fitting  and  grateful  climax  to 
this  long  review.  It  was  the  pleasure  of  Providence  to 
estabhsh  a  close  and  even  vital  bond  between  home  and 
foreign  missions  in  America. 

Samuel  J.  Mills,  who  has  been  called  "the  father  of 
foreign-mission  work  in  Christian  America,"  was  himself 
the  son  of  a  home  missionary  sent  out  by  the  General 
Association  of  Connecticut  in  1793  into  the  new  settle- 
ments of  the  West.  The  foreign-missionary  torch  of 
the  son  was  kindled  at  a  home-missionary  fireside  in 
Torringford,  Connecticut.  That  flame  fired  the  zeal  of 
Judson,  Newell,  Nott,  Hall,  Rice,  and  Richards;  and 
upon  their  petition  to  be  sent  out  to  India,  the  "Ameri- 
can Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions  "  was 
instituted  by  the  General  Association  of  Massachusetts 
in  1810.  The  conviction,  courage,  and  faith  displayed 
in  that  step  can  never  be  too  highly  estimated.  Whether 
it  would  have  been  taken  then,  or  ever,  but  for  the 
movement  which  for  twenty  previous  years  had  been 
quickening  the  missionary  zeal  of  the  New  England 


The  Fruits  347 

churches,  who  can  say?  Many  of  the  same  men  and 
women  were  prominent  in  starting  both  movements; 
and  certainly  a  new  atmosphere  had  been  created  which 
was  reacting  healthfully  upon  the  evangehstic  impulse 
of  the  churches,  and  which,  we  must  beheve,  was  power- 
fully felt  at  Bradford,  when  one  of  the  grandest  forward 
movements  of  the  missionary  century  was  taken.  Thus, 
at  least,  the  order  of  history  became  hterally  the  order 
of  the  Great  Commission  itself;  and  from  "beginning  at 
Jerusalem,"  in  1798,  the  American  churches  advanced 
"into  all  the  world  "  in  1810.  The  influence  of  that  for- 
ward step  was  immediately  felt  upon  home  missions. 
From  that  hour  it  became  a  world  movement.  Its 
early  motto  had  been,  "Save  America";  but  when  the 
missionary  horizon  widened  to  include  India  its  motto 
lengthened,  and  ever  since  it  has  been,  "Save  America 
to  save  the  World."  Just  this  larger  motive  was  needed 
to  lift  the  enterprise  of  home  evangelization  to  its 
loftiest  plane,  and  nothing  probably  has  ever  reacted 
more  favorably  upon  the  spirit  of  the  home-missionary 
worker  and  his  work  than  this  providential  broadening 
of  its  aim. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  immediate  and  continuous 
need  of  foreign  missions  was  a  base  of  supply,  both  of 
money  and  of  men.  That  base  has  not  yet  been  found 
on  its  own  missionary  ground,  although  self-support 
in  foreign  missions  is  beginning  to  be  tentatively  dis- 
cussed. But  for  some  time  to  come,  as  in  ninety  years 
past,  that  all-important  base  must  be  found  in  America, 
and  among  the  churches  planted  and  yet  to  be  planted 
by  home  missions.  Dry  up  this  source  of  supply  for  a 
single  year,  and  missions  in  Africa,  China,  India,  Tur- 
key, and  the  Islands  would  droop  hke  willows  cut  off 


348  Leavening  the  Nation 

from  their  water- courses.  And  what  is  true  of  money 
is  equally  true  of  men.  Native  pastors  have  been 
raised  up  in  considerable  numbers,  but  the  need  of 
American-trained  missionaries  continues  and  increases. 
Already  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  our  foreign  missionaries 
have  been  drawn  from  home-missionary  soil.  The 
churches  and  colleges  of  the  West  planted  and  fostered 
by  home  missions  have  rejoiced  unspeakably  in  sending 
their  choicest  men  and  women  into  the  foreign  mission- 
ary service,  and  among  the  incidental  fruits  of  home  mis- 
sions there  is  none  which  its  friends  regard  with  more 
satisfaction  or  deeper  gratitude  than  this.  Thus  the 
kinship  and  oneness  of  home  and  foreign  missions  are 
demonstrated  to  the  joy  of  both.  Certain  forms  of 
speech  which  are  found  convenient  and  even  necessary 
to  distinguish  their  operations  apart  have  sometimes 
obscured  this  truth.  It  is  well  to  remind  ourselves  that 
in  the  last  command  of  Christ  there  was  no  "home," 
there  was  no  "foreign  ";  "all  the  world  "  was  the  field: 
and  the  Christian  who  believes  in  home  missions  but  not 
in  foreign  is  as  far  from  the  mind  of  Christ  as  he  who 
believes  in  foreign  missions  and  not  in  home.  The 
two  are  one,  and  as  seamless  as. the  Master's  robe. 

Broad-minded  men  have  emphasized  this  truth  in 
many  striking  utterances.  It  was  this  interdependence 
of  home  and  foreign  missions  that  moved  Austin  Phelps 
to  exclaim  in  that  intense  style  so  peculiarly  his  own: 
"If  I  were  a  missionary  in  Canton,  China,  my  first 
prayer  every  morning  would  be  for  the  success  of  Ameri- 
can home  missions,  for  the  sake  of  Canton,  China."  It 
was  this  that  led  Dr.  R.  S.  Storrs,  more  than  twenty 
years  ago,  to  write  from  Florence,  Italy:  "The  future  of 
the  world  is  pivoted  on  the  question  whether  the  Prot- 


The  Fruits  349 

estant  churches  of  America  can  hold,  enlighten,  purify, 
the  peoples  born  or  gathered  into  its  great  compass." 
Marcus  Whitman  Montgomery,  an  intense  home-mis- 
sionary worker,  gave  expression  to  the  same  sentiment 
at  Saratoga  ten  years  ago :  "The  United  States  of  to-day 
is  the  mountain-top  of  the  hopes  of  many  nations." 
Josiah  Strong  affirms:  "He  does  most  to  Christianize 
the  world  and  to  hasten  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom, 
who  does  most  to  make  thoroughly  Christian  the 
United  States."  William  Kincaid,  after  years  of  devo- 
tion to  home  and  foreign  missions,  declares  that  "the 
planting  and  nurturing  of  churches  in  America  is  our 
first  and  best  work  for  the  world;  our  first  work  because 
all  other  Christian  activities  grow  from  and  depend  upon 
this;  our  best  work  because  in  no  other  place  on  earth 
can  we  obtain  so  mighty  a  purchase  for  the  elevation 
of  mankind."  "Should  America  fail,"  declares  Pro- 
fessor Park,  "the  world  will  fail."  And  if  further  testi- 
mony were  needed  to  mark  the  far-reaching  influence  of 
home  missions  in  America  upon  the  fate  of  the  nations, 
the  stirring  words  of  Professor  Phelps  addressed  to  the 
Home  Missionary  Convention  at  Chicago  in  1881  might 
be  added,  and  may  well  conclude  our  treatment  of  the 
subject: 

"The  evangehzing  of  America  is  the  work  of  an 
emergency.  That  emergency  is  not  paralleled  by  the 
spiritual  conditions  and  prospects  of  any  other  country 
on  the  globe.  The  element  of  time  must  be  the  control- 
ling one  in  a  wise  policy  for  its  conversion,  and  for  the 
use  of  it  as  an  evangelizing  power  over  the  nations. 
That  which  is  to  be  done  here  must  be  done  soon.  If 
this  continent  is  to  be  saved  to  Christ,  and  if  the  im- 
measurable power  of  its  resources  and  its  prestige  is  to 


350  Leavening  the  Nation 

be  insured  to  the  cause  of  the  world's  conversion,  the 
critical  bulk  of  the  work  must  be  done  now.  The  deci- 
sive blows  of  conquest  must  be  struck  now.  For  rea- 
sons of  exigency  equally  imperative  with  those  which 
crowded  Jerusalem  upon  the  attention  of  the  ApostoUc 
pioneers,  this  country  stands  first  on  the  roll  of  evan- 
gehcal  enterprise  to-day.  This,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is 
just  the  difference  to-day  between  the  Oriental  and  the 
Occidental  nations,  as  related  to  the  conversion  of  both 
to  Christ.  The  nations  whose  conversion  is  the  most 
pressing  necessity  of  the  world  to-day  are  the  Occidental 
nations.  Those  whose  speedy  conversion  is  most  vital 
to  the  conversion  of  the  rest  are  the  nations  of  the 
Occident.  The  pioneer  stock  of  mind  must  be  the  Occi- 
dental stock.  The  pioneer  races  must  be  the  West- 
ern races.  And  of  all  the  Western  races,  who  that  can 
read  skillfully  the  providence  of  God,  or  can  read  it  at 
all,  can  hesitate  in  affirming  that  the  signs  of  divine 
decree  point  to  this  land  of  ours  as  the  one  which  is 
fast  gathering  to  itself  the  races  which  must  take  the 
lead  in  the  final  conflicts  of  Christianity  for  the  posses- 
sion of  the  world.  Ours  is  the  elect  nation  for  the  ages 
to  come.  We  are  the  chosen  people.  Ours  are  the 
promises,  promises  great  and  sure,  because  the  emer- 
gency is  great.  We  cannot  afford  to  wait.  If  we  cannot, 
the  world  cannot  afford  to  wait.  The  plans  of  God  will 
not  wait.  These  plans  seem  to  have  brought  us  to  one 
of  the  closing  stages  in  this  world's  career,  in  which  we 
can  no  longer  drift  with  safety  to  our  destiny.  We  are 
shut  up  to  a  perilous  alternative.  Immeasurable  oppor- 
tunities surround  and  overshadow  us.  Such,  as  I  read 
it,  is  the  central  fact  in  the  philosophy  of  American 
Home  Missions.'! 


The  Fruits  351 

Oppressed  and  well-nigh  overwhelmed  by  the  broad 
horizon  of  duty  and  responsibiUty  where  these  solemn 
words  leave  us,  nevertheless  the  writer  brings  his  task 
to  an  end  with  an  enlarged  hope  and  faith  in  the  fuial 
triumph  of  American  Home  Missions.  In  this  faith 
and  hope  he  invites  his  readers  to  share.  The  past  is 
secure  and  it  is  glorious.  No  sign  of  decadence  rests 
upon  our  cause.  The  rehgious  forces  of  America  were 
never  stronger  or  strengthening  more  rapidly  than  to- 
day. Consecrated  wealth  was  never  larger  and  never 
more  freely  bestowed.  Christian  workers  were  never 
so  numerous,  never  more  wilhng.  The  field  was  never 
so  quick  with  promise  or  so  white  with  harvests.  Re- 
hgious sects  still  divide  the  home-missionary  army; 
but  never  since  the  Day  of  Pentecost  was  there  such 
fellowship  between  them,  never  more  mutual  charity  for 
differences,  and  never  more  common,  courteous,  and 
Christian  cooperation  in  the  leavening  of  the  nation. 
If  the  hope  or  zeal  of  any  have  slackened,  it  is  without 
cause.  The  twentieth  century  opens  with  auguries  for 
our  country  a  thousand  times  brighter  than  any  which  •>^ 
cheered  our  home-missionary  fathers  in  1798.  Above 
all,  the  leaven  of  the  Kingdom,  the  power  of  the  Gospel 
of  Christ  to  redeem  men,  to  uplift  society,  and  to  make 
a  nation  strong  by  righteousness,  has  been  proved  and 
never  failed,  is  being  proved  with  new  victories  every 
hour.  Let  us  take  the  courage  which  these  facts  are 
fitted  to  inspire.  "He  who  goes  through  a  land  scatter- 
ing blown  roses  may  be  tracked  next  day  by  the  with- 
ered petals  that  strew  the  ground;  but  he  who  goes 
through  a  land  scattering  rose  seed,  a  hundred  years 
after  leaves  behind  him  a  land  full  of  fragrance  and 
beauty  for  his  monument."    The  home  missionary  goes 


352  Leavening  the  Nation 

through  a  land  scattering  seed,  in  every  grain  of  which 
God  has  hidden  not  merely  the  promise  of  fragrance  and 
beauty,  but  bread  of  hfe  for  the  millions  of  America 
and  ultimately  for  "all  the  world.'^ 


INDEX 


Abbott,  E.  H.,  86, 164 

Abolitionists,  two  kinds,  179 

Adams,  E.  A.,  270 

Adams,  Ephraim,  98,  99,  100 

Adams,  Harvey,  98,  101 

Aguadella,  260 

Alabama,  191 

Alaska,  248-252 

Albany  Convention  and 
church  building,  321 

Albrecht,  G.  E.,  268 

America,  an  asylum  for  the 
persecuted,  16 

America  dedicated  by  Colum- 
bus, 12 

American  Bible  Society  (1816), 
318 

American  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners for  Foreign  Missions, 
197,  346 

American  Catholic  Church, 
modification  of,  266 

American  Church  History,  be- 
ginning of,  20 

American  city  and  foreign 
immigration,  279 

American  French  College,  298 

American  Home  Missionary 
Society  organized,  62 

Americans  in  New  Mexico,  242 

American  Missionary  Associa- 
tion, 179,  181,  243,  250,  259 

American  Sunday  School  Un- 
ion (1824),  319 

American  Tract  Society  (1825), 
318 

Arizona,  246,  247 

Army  enlistments  from  home- 
missionary  churches,  343 

Ashburton  Treaty,  198 


Atchison,  Kansas,  108 

Atkinson,  G.  H.  and  Oregon, 
200-206 

Atkinson  School,  Portland, 
Oregon,  205 

Atlanta,  churches  planted,  189 

Austinburg,  Ohio,  church  or- 
ganized, 62 

Awakening,  The  Great  (1740), 
21,  23,  24 

Bacon,  David,  42 

Bacon,  Leonard,  20,  31,  99 

Bacon,  L.  W.,  13,  15,  173, 175, 
327 

Badger,  Joseph,  42,  62 

Badger,  Milton,  99,  216,  222 

Bailey,  A.  J.,  212 

Baird,  L.  O.,  311 

Baldwin,  Theron,  70 

Baltimore  and  his  son,  17, 174 

Bancroft,  George,  16, 19 

Bancroft,  H.  H.,  228,  230,  231 

Baptist  church  building,  322 

Baptist  foreign  work  in  Amer- 
ica, 277 

"Baptist  Home  Missions,"  by 
Dr.  H,  L.  Morehouse,  345 

Baptist  women,  306 

Baptists  in  various  States,  25. 
31,  64,  76,  81,  85,  116,  175, 
254 

Barrows,  "W.  M.,  236 

Barrows,  William,  193 

Bascom,  Flavel,  70 

Bayley,  F.  T.,  161 

Beard,  A.  F.,  257,  258 

Beard,  R.  A.,  208 

Beecher,  Edward,  70 

BeU,  W.  S.,  151,  153 

-    353 


354 


Index 


Beloit,  82,  83 
Benner,  Edward,  238 
Billings,  Montana,  151 
Billings,  Frederick,  151 
Bingham,  L.  E.,  839 
Birlew,  G.E.,  243 
Blackburn,  Gideon,  66 
Blanchard,  Addison,  160,  161 
Bliss,  C.  N.,  142 
Bliss,  C.  R.,  237 
Bohemian  Mission  Board,  270 
Border  ruffians,  their  methods, 

107 
Boulder,  Colorado,  157 
Bouton,  Nathaniel,  60 
Bradford,  Governor,  16,  20 
Brainard,  David,  23 
Bray  ton,  I.  H.,  on  California, 

223 
Bridger,  James,  228 
Broad,  L.  P.,  116 
Bross,  H.,  119 
Brown,  C.  T.,  236 
Brown,  John,  108 
Brown,  W.  B.,  322 
Buck,  Richard,  173 
Buckley,  J.  M.,  313 
Billiard,  Artemas,  93 
Burlington,  Iowa,  95  , 

Caldwell,  M.  E.,  260 
California,  213-227 
California,  Southern,  220 
Cape  Prince  of  Wales,  182,  250 
Carlton  College,  Scandinavian 

department,  275 
Carolinas  settled,  175 
Carroll,  H.  K,  7,  137 
Carter,  H.  W.,  85 
Cartwright,  B.  G.,  95 
Case,  A.  B.,  134 
Cass,  Lewis,  75 
Caswell,  Mrs.  H.  S.,  310,  311 
Catholepistemiad,  77 
Catholics  lost  to  the  church, 

262,  263 
Centennial  State,  155 
Center  of  the  United   States, 

104 
Central  City,  Colorado,  156  ^ 


Chamberlain,  Hiram,  60 

Chicago,  52,  265 

Chicago  Theological  Seminary, 

268,  275 
Cheever,  G.  B.,  on  California, 

223 
Cherokee  Strip,  168 
Chinese  schools,  182 
Choate,  "Washington,  187,  242 
Christian  benevolence  in  New 

England,  299-301 
Christian  Education,  180,  234, 

236  337 
Church  building,  218,  320 
Church,  chief  weapon  of  home 

missions,  316 
Churches    not   pauperized  by 

home  missions,  334 
Cienfuegos,  Cuba,  254 
Cities  and  the  foreign  element, 

264 
City  missions,  279 
City,  perils  of,  280 
Civil  War  and  home  missions, 

343 
Clapp,  A.  H.,  129,  130,  210 
Clapp,  C.  F.,  207 
Clapp,  T.  E.,  203 
Clark,  A.  T.,  191 
Clark,  George  Rogers,  73 
Clark,  J.  A.,  96 
Clark,  J.  S.,  23,  41 
Cleaveland,  Moses,  56 
Cleveland      Bible      Training 

School,  269 
Cobb,  Howell,  his  unconscious 

testimony,  343 
Cobb,  L.  H.,  123,  126,  322 
Cobleigh,  N  S.,  208 
Coe,  D.  B.,  340 
Coeducation  in  Michigan,  78 
Coeur  d'Alene,  145 
Coit,  Joshua,  292,  293,  294 
Cole,  H.  H.,  251 
Collateral  value  of  home  mis- 
sions, 341,  342 
Colleges  at  the  West,  338-340 
Collins,  C.  T.,  270 
Colorado,  153-165 
Colorado  College,  237 


Index 


355 


Columbus  providentially  guid- 
ed, 12 

Concert  of  prayer  for  the 
world,  23 

Congregational  Education  So- 
ciety, 338 

Congregational  foreign  work, 
275 

Congregational  growth,  20,  21, 
65,  81,  85,  101,  102, 110,  111, 
115,  225.  275 

Congregational  Methodists  at 
the  South,  190 

Congregational  Sunday  School 
and  Publishing  Society,  324 

Congregational  Women,  307 

Congress  recommends  Bibles, 
317 

Connecticut  General  Associa- 
tion sends  missionaries,  27 

Connecticut  and  Massachusetts 
societies  national,  29 

Connecticut,  Missionary  Soci- 
ety of,  28,  29,  30,  42,  43 

Conner,  P.  E.,  234,  235, 

Continental  Divide,  a  new,  174 

Cook,  E.  W.,  140 

Cooley,  T.  M.,  75,  77,  78.  79,  80 

Cooperative  agencies,  316-329 

Copper  Country,  in  Michigan, 
81 

Cordley,  Richard,  109 

Cram,  D.  W.,  251 

Crary,  General  I.  E.,  79 

Crawford,  William,  156 

Creegan,  C.  C,  160 

Cripple  Creek  beginnings,  163 

Crocker,  J.  H.,  148 

Cross,  R.  T.,  159,  161 

Cuba,  252-257 

Curtis,  E.  D.,  65 

Cutler,  Manasseh,  55 

"Daily  Union  FiefoWe  "  quoted, 

234 
Dakota  Band,  134 
Dakotas,  128-136 
Dane,  Nathan,  57 
Dartmouth  College,  a  fruit  of 

the  Great  Awakening,  23 


Davis,  J.  D.,  140 
Davis,  R.  H.,  167 
Davies,  W.,  211 
Daytona,  Florida,  church  or- 
ganized, 186 
De  Barritt,  A.,  255 
Decadence  of  New  England  in 

spots,  287 
Delaware,     known    as     New 

Sweden,  17 
Denver,   church   planting  in, 

157,  161 
"Der  Kirchehote"  268 
Deseret,  233 
Des  Moines,  95 
Detroit,  74,  265 
'  'Diadem  of  iht  Mountains,  "148 
"Die  Segensquslle,"  268 
Dorchester  Church  in   South 

Carolina,  188 
Dorchester,  Daniel,  333 
Douglas,  Alaska,  250 
Douglas,  J.  V/.,  216 
Douglas,  Senator,  105 
Douglass,  T.  0„  102 
Doyle,    S.  H.,   231,  244,   349, 

260 
Drake,  S.  A.,  56,  59,  117 
Dubuque,  Iowa,  96 
Dunning,  A.  E.,  24,  38,  100 
Dutch  of  New  York,  17 
Dwight,    President,    and    the 

West,  53 

Eddy,  Zachary,  189 
Education  in   New  England, 

238 
Edwards,  J.,  146 
Edwards,  Jonathan,  23,  24 
Eells,  Gushing,  339 
Eells,  Myron,  199,  201 
Ekman,  Dr.,  in  America,  374 
Ellis,  J.  M.,  67,  339 
Emerson,  Miss  D.  E.,  310 
Emigration  Company  in  New 

England,  107 
Emporia,  Kansas,  110 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  165 
Episcopalians,  25,  85,  116,  255, 

314,  333 


356 


Index 


Evangelical     Conference     in 

Cuba,  256 
Eversz,  M.  E,,  368 

Fairbanks,  Professor  H.,  289 

Fairchild,  President,  183 

Fajardo,  Porto  Rico,  259 

Fargo  College,  136 

Fast  day  proclamation  in  New 
Hampshire,  290 

Female  Cent  Institution,  New 
Hampshire,  303 

Ferris,  Chancellor,  317 

Fisher,  G.  P.,  12 

Fisher,  G.  W.,  156 

Fisher,  S.  V.  S.,  275 

Florida,  growth  in,  186 

Founders  of  America,  the  real, 
15 

Foster,  Aaron,  60 

Ford,  J.  T.,  221 

Ford,  L.  M.,  245 

Foreign  departments  of  the 
American  Home  Missionary 
Society,  268 

Foreign  immigration,  distribu- 
tion of,  264 

Foreign  work  in  New  England, 
298 

Fort  Dearborn,  52 

Frazer,  C  W.,  255 

Free  Methodists,  190 

"Free  Mission"  movement  in 
Sweden,  273,  274,  275 

Fremont  and  early  California, 
213 

French  Canadians  in  Massa- 
chusetts, 284 

French  colonies,  their  growth, 
14 

Fruits  of  Home  Missions,  330- 
352 

Gale,  S.  F.,  187,  339 
Gaylord,  Reuben,  97,  116,  117, 

339 
General  Assembly  organized, 

35 
"Gentlemen"  and    "slaves," 

176 


Georgia,  a  philanthropic  enter- 
prise, 18,  175,  176 

German  commonwealth  in 
Wisconsin,  84 

German  immigration,  50,  263 

German  missions,  fruits  of,  268 

Giddings,  Salmon,  66,  92 

Gilbert,  Simeon,  237 

Gold  discovered  in  California, 
214 

Goodell,  C.  L.,  93 

Gordon,  H.  E.,  238 

Grassie,  T.  M.,  84 

Gray,  Captain  Robert,  143 

Grav,  W.  B.  D.,  140 

Gray,  W.  H.,  194 

Great  American  Desert,  156 

Great  Britain,  her  unjust 
claims  to  territory,  74 

Great  Salt  Lake  discovered, 
228 

Green,  J.  M.,  260 

Greek  church  in  Alaska,  249 

Gregg,  J.  B.,  157 

Gregory  Diggings,  156 

Griffin,  Edward,  25 

Grimes,  Senator,  94 

Guanabacoa,  Cuba,  254 

Guanajay,  Cuba,  255 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  17 

Hale,  W.  E.,  237 

Hall,  Charles,  69 

Hall,  Richard,  123,  125 

Hamilton  Female  Baptist  So- 
ciety, 306 

Hamilton,  Lewis,  156 

Hammond,  C.  G.,  237 

Harbutt,  Charles,  297 

Harrison,  William  Henry,  in 
Indiana,  57 

Heald,  J.  H.,  242 

Hermann,  Commissioner,  142 

Herrick,  E.  P.,  252,  255 

High  ideals,  value  to  a  nation, 
342 

Hill  towns  in  New  England, 
293 

Hillman,  A.  T.,  testifies  of 
Hampshire,  291 


Index 


357 


History  defined,  11 
Holbrook,  J.  C,  96 
Hollanders  in  America,  278 
Hood,  E.  L.,  243 
Hood,  G.  A.,  126 
Hooker,  E.  P.,  339 
Hooker,  Q.  E.,  211 
Home  and    foreign    missions, 

their  kinship,  348 
Home  Missions,  a  business  suc- 
cess, 336 
Home     Missions    and    moral 

forces,  345 
Home  Missions  and  the  immi- 
grant problem,  262-282 
Home  Missions  organized,  20 
Home    Missions    and  love    of 

country,  341 
Home- missionary  biographies, 

345 
Home-missionary         colleges, 

their  patriotic  zeal,  348 
Home   Missionary    convention 

in  New  York,  62 
"  Home  missionary     hero    se- 
ries," 207 
Home-missionary      literature, 

345 
Home- missionary       organiza- 
tions, 341 
Home-missionary  policy, 

change  of  in  1826,  59 
Home-missionary    responsibil- 
ity for  the  city,  281,  282 
Howe,  E.  G.,  67 
Hudson  Bay  Company,  their 

monopoly,  195 
Huguenots  in  the  Carolinas,175 
Humacoa ,  Porto  Rico,  259 
Hunt,  Robert,  173 
Hunt,  T.  D.,  216 
Hutchinson,  Horace,  98 
Hyde,  Nathaniel  A.,  65 
Hyde,  W.  D.,  296,  297 

Idaho,  142-148 
Illinois,  58,  59,  65,  66,  67 
Illinois  Band,  68-70 
Illinois  College,  68,  69 
Immigration,  262-383 


Incidental  results,  337 

Indiana,  58,  64,  65 

Indiana,  slavery  in,  57 

Indian  gifts  to  education,  78 

Indians  oppressed  by  Spain,  be- 
friended by  France,  14 

Interdenominational  Commis- 
sion of  Maine,  296 

Iowa,  94-103 

Iowa  Band,  97-102,  345 

Iowa  College,  its  war  record, 
344 

Ives,  J.  S.,  296 

Jackson,  Sheldon,  206,  236,  250 

Jacksonville,  Florida,  186 

James,  J.  W.,  260 

Jay's  Treaty  with  Great  Brit- 
ain, 74 

Jefferson  and  the  Louisiana 
purchase,  87 

Jenkins,  F.  E..  189, 192 

Jeremiahs  of  1803,  90 

Kansas,  104-116 
Kansas  Band,  109 
Kaskasia  captured,  73 
Kearney,     General,    in    New 

Mexico,  241 
Kendall,  Henry,  206,  236 
Keokuk,  96 
Kephart,  W.  G.,  344 
Keystone    of     the     American 

Commonwealth,  50 
Kincaid,  William,  349 
Kingsbury,  J.  D.,  145,  252 
Knox  College,  its  war  record, 

344 

Lares,  Porto  Rico,  259 
Latter-day  Saints  in  Utah,  229 
Lawrence,    Kansas,   Plymouth 

Church,  108,  109 
Leaven,  test  of,  330 
Leavenworth,  Kansas,  108 
Lecompton,  Kansas,  108 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  92,  106 
Lindsley,  A.  L.,  206 
Livingston,  and  the  Louisiana 

Purchase,  87 


3S^ 


Index 


Lopez,  J.  M.,  255 

Lord  Supper  societies  in  Swe- 
den and  Norway,  273 

Louisiana  Lottery  in  North  Da- 
kota, 342 

Louisiana  Purchase,  87,  172 

Lovejoy,  A.  L,,  197 

Lutheran  Church,  growth  of, 
263 

Lum,  8.  Y.,  109 

Lyon,  D.  C,  126 

MacFarland,  D.  F.,  244 
Madison,  Wisconsin,  82 
Magoun,  G.  F.,  95,  96,  97 
Maile,  J.  L.,  221 
Maine  Home    Missionary  So- 
ciety, 31 
Maine,     its    peculiar    church 

problems,  296 
Maltby,  John,  61 
Manhattan,  Kansas,  108 
Marietta,  Ohio,  43,  47,  55,  56 
Maryland,  17,  174 
Mary  Lyon,  295 
Massachusetts   Missionary  So- 
ciety, 28,  29 
Massachusetts    Domestic  Mis- 
sionary Society  (Baptist),  31 
Massachusetts  Sabbath  School 

Society,  324 
Massacre,  of  Marcus  Whitman 

and  wife,  241 
Matanzas,  Cuba,  254 
Mayaguez,  Porto  Rico,  260 
Mayflower  compact,  its  mean- 
ing, 16 
Mayflower,  the  second,  55 
Maygars,  270 

McLeod,  Norman,  opens  mis- 
sion in  Utah,  234 
McFarlaud,  Mrs.  A.  R.,  250 
McFarland,  Mrs.  Asa.  304 
McFarland,  Miss  A.  A.,  305 
McMillan,  D.  J.,  in  Utah,  236 
Memorial  to  Congress  in  1777, 

317 
Meredith,  R.  R.,  210 
Merrill,  C.  H.,  respecting  Ver- 
mont, 290 


Merrill,  G.  R.,  126 

Methodist  church  building,  323 

Methodists  at  the  South  and 
West,  64,  81,  85,  116,  151, 
185,  232,  246 

Methodist  women  organize,  313 

Mexican  Cession,  213-247 

Michigan,  73-81 

Midway  Church,  the,  188 

Miller,  G.  L.,  119 

Mills  and  Schermerhorn,  65 

Mills,  Samuel  J.,  346 

Milwaukee,  52,  82,  265 

Mining  camps  and  home  mis- 
sions, 145 

Minnesota,  120-127 

Minnesota  State  Union,  310 

"Minute-man  on  the  frontier," 
81,  345 

Missionaries  withdrawn  from 
the  South,  178 

Missionary  boxes,  308 

Missouri,  87-94 

Missouri  Compromise,  105 

Moffatt,  Miss  M.  Dean,  314 

Monroe  and  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase, 87 

Montana,  148-152 

Montgomery,  M.  W.,  126,  231, 
271,  349 

Montieth,  John,  76 

Moore,  W.  H.,  296 

Morehouse,  H.  L.,  185,  267, 
269,  306 

Morley,  J.  H.,  126 

"  Mormon  delusion,"  231 

Mormonism,  229,  230,  231,  232 

Morse,  D.  C,  109 

Mowry,  W.  A,,  199 

Mullan,  Idaho,  145 

Napoleon  and  the  Louisiana 
Purchase,  87.  172 

Narrative  of  Stephen  Peet,  83, 
84 

National  Home  Missionary  So- 
ciety, its  effect,  59,  63 

Nebraska,  116-119 

Negro  slaves  at  Jamestown, 
374 


Index 


339 


Negro  missions  at  the  South, 
179 

Neill,  E.  D.,  123 

New  Connecticut,  42 

New  England  in  1798,  20-32 

New  England's  shortsighted- 
ness, 52 

New-England  fathers,  their 
missionary  policy,  30 

New  England  to-day,  283-302 

New  Hampshire,  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society,  31 

New  Hampshire,  religious 
growth  in,  291,  292 

New  Mexico,  240-246 

New  Smyrna,  Florida,  186 

New  South,  a,  186,  191,  192 

New  Spain,  26 

New  West  Education  Commis- 
sion, 237 

New  York,  population  in  1800, 
34 

Nez  Perces  Indians,  mission  to, 
194 

Nichols,  J.  T.,  211 

Noble,  P.  A.,  237 

Nome,  Alaska,  251 

North  and  South  lines  in  the 
church,  178 

North  and  South  elements  in 
Montana,  148 

North  Dakota,  136,  264 

Northwest  Territory,  47-52 

Northwestern  boundary  ques- 
tion, 193 

Northern  Pacific  R.  R.,  208 

Nutting,  J.  D.,  231 

Oberlin  Slavic  department,  269 
Oberlin's  war  record,  343 
Occidental    nations     and    the 

world's  conversion,  350 
"  Open  doors  "  in  Texas,  187 
Openings   of  Oklahoma,    167, 

168,  171 
O'Gorman,  Bishop,  13 
Ohio,  55,  57 
Ohio  Company,  47 
Ohioans  in  the  far  West,  64 
Oklahoma,  165-173 


Old  Hay  Tent,  the,  110 

Omaha,  its  rapid  growth,  117 

Ordinance  of  1787,  47,  48,  49, 
57 

Oregon,  elements  in  early  pop- 
ulation, 201 

Oregon  City,  202 

Osawatomie,  Kansas,  108 

Ostracism  at  the  South,  179 

Otis,  C.  C,  208 

"  Our  Country  "  by  Dr.  Josiah 
Strong,  345 

Outlook,  The,  86,  164 

Owens,  E.,  146 

Pacific  Northwest,  193-213 
Pacific,    the,   as    a    travelling 

missionary,  219 
Palmer,  Ray,  322 
Park,  E.  A.,  349 
Parker,  Alexander,  221 
Parker,  E.  P.,  26,  27,  42,  53 
Parker,  R.  D.,  109 
Patriotism  in  home-missionary 

churches,  343 
Peck,  John  M., his  fight  against 

slavery,  66,  93 
Peet,  Stephen,  82 
Penn,  William,  17 
Pennsylvania,  17 
Penrose,  S.  B.  L.,  210,  339 
Peoria,  58 
Perea,  J.  Y.,  244 
Peters,  Absalom,  69 
Phelps,  Austin,  348,  349 
Philosophy  of  home  missions, 

350 
Pickett,  J.  W.,  158 
Pierce,  J.  D.,  77,  79 
Pike,    Zebulon    Montgomery, 

153 
Pike's  Peak,  155 
Plan  of  Union,  36-41 
"Plowshare  of  Missions,"  318 
Plymouth  Church  greets  Salem 

Church,  20 
Poles,  270 

Popular  sovereignty,  105 
Population     of    the     United 

States,  264 


360 


Index 


Population,  center  of,  26 

Porter,  Jeremiah,  first  mission- 
ary in  Chicago,  67,  68 

Porto  Rico,  182,  257-261 

Post,  Truman  M.,  71,  93 

Powell,  G.  J.,  136 

Prentiss,  Narcissa,  194 

Preparation,  the,  11-19 

Presbyterian  Church  Building, 
328 

"Presbyterian  Home  Mis- 
sions," by  Dr.  S.  H,  Doyle, 
345 

Presbyterian  women  organize, 
305 

Presbyterians  and  home  mis- 
sions, 34,  35,  81,  85,  116, 
206,  236,  246,  255,  260,  278, 
332 

Princeton  College,  fruit  of 
the  Great  Awakening,  23 

Prucha,  John,  270 

Puddefoot.  W.  G.,  81,  345 

Pueblos,  241 

Puritans,  15 

Putnam,  General,  55 

Quakers  in  the  Carolinas,  175 
Quantrell's  Raid,  114 
Quindaro,  Kansas,  111 

Racine,  Wisconsin,  83 

Ramsey,  Governor,  121 

Ray,  G.  W.,  163 

Reaction  in  California,  224 

Reaction  in  Cuba  against  the 
Catholic  Church,  253 

Read,  W.  H.,  243 

Reed,  J.  A.,  96.  97,  101 

Rees,  Luther,  187 

Reformed  Church  of  America, 
35,  85,  278 

Reformed  Church  women  or- 
ganize, 312 

Religious  forces,  92,  102,  119, 
148,  152,  177,  212,  226,  333 

Repeal  of  Missouri  Compro- 
mise, 105 

Rescue  Mission,  279 

Richard,  Father,  77 


Riggs,  A.  L.,  840 

Robbins,  Thomas,  42 

Robinson,  Governor,  Charles, 
108 

Robinson,  John,  a  true  prophet, 
20 

Robinson,  King,  murdered, 
235 

Rollins  College,  186 

Rollins,  Governor,  290 

Roman  Catholics  in  Massachu- 
setts, 25 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  87 

"Rope  of  Sand," 21 

Roy,  J.  E.,  7,  41,  66,  100,  140, 
183,  189 

Royce,  Professor,  on  Califor- 
nia, 213,  220 

Russia  in  Alaska,  248 

Ryder,  C.  J.,  250 

Salter,  William,  99,  100,  159 

Salem  Church  organized,  20 

Salvation  Army,  328 

San  Antonia  De  Los  Banos,  255 

Sanders,  C.  M.,  141,  161 

Sanderson,  Horace,  161,  162, 
164 

San  Francisco  early  conditions, 
217 

Sante  Fe  Boarding  School,  244 

Sante  Fe,  Missionary  Associa- 
tion, 305 

Santurce,  259 

Savage,  G.  S.  F.,  237 

Scandinavians  in  America,  271, 
272 

Scandinavian  department,  270 

Schauffler,  H.  A.,  269 

Scotch  and  Irish  at  the  South, 
175 

Scott,  C.  B.,  259 

Sectarianism  in  Maine,  296 

Seccombe,  Charles,  123,  125 

Sectional  nomenclature,  33 

Separatists,  15 

Seven  Years  War,  its  result, 
15 

Seward,  William  H  ,  108,  248 

Shaw,  J.  T.,  133 


Index 


361 


Sheldon,  C.  M.,  134 

Sheldon,  Stewart,  134,  157 

Shelton,  C.  W.,  135,  186 

Shelton,  Mrs.  H.  M.,  310 

Shipherd,  J.  J.,  339 

Simmons,  H.  C,  136 

Slave  power  demented,  66,  106, 
117,  214 

Slavic  department,  369 

Slovacs,  270 

Smith,  Captain  John,  173 

Smith,  E.  L.,  210 

Social  settlements,  279 

Somelllan,  H.  B.,  255 

Southern    Congregationalism, 
190 

Spalding,  H.  H.,  194 

Spain  in  America,  13 

Spanish-Mexicans,  241 

Spring,  L.  W.,  106,  107 

Squatter  sovereignty,  105 

Stage  coach  incident,  60 

State  Unions,  310 

StoiTS,  H.  M.,  135 

Storrs,  R.  S.,  216.  341,  348 

Storrs,  S.  D.,  109 

Southern  Belt,  the,  173-193 

Strieby,  M.  E.,  183 

Strong,  J.  W.,  339 

Strong  Josiah,    141,  231,  233, 
285,  286,  349 

"Stump  District"  in    Michi- 
gan, 81 

Sturtevant,   President    J.  M., 
70 

Sturtevant,  J.  M.,  Jr.,  71 

Sunday-schools  in  the  United 
States,  319 

Tampa,  Cuban  Mission,  187 
Tappan,  Lewis.  182 
Taylor,  E.  E.  L.,  333. 
Taylor,  Graham,  379 
Taylor,  W.  M.,  331 
Tecumseh.  58 
Tenney,  E.  P.,  156 
"Ten  reasons  "  for  not  fellow- 

shiping  Mormons,  333,  333 
Tent,  "  Whosoever  Will,"  163 
Territories  in  1798,  26 


Texas,  phenomenal  growth,  187 

Theological  reformation  of 
1760,  35 

Thompson,  C.  L.,  333 

Thompson,  J.  P.,  316 

Thompson,  O.  C,  77 

Thrall,  W.  H.,  135 

Thwing,  President,  C.  F,,  344 

Tichenor,  Lydia,  338 

Tiffany,  C.  C,  314 

Tobacco  a  legal  currency,  174 

Todd,  G.  L.,355,  356 

Tompkins,  James,  340 

Topeka,  108 

Town  versus  plantation,  176 

Travel,  inconveniences  of,  in 
1800,  43 

Turner,  F.  J.,  50,  85 

Turner,  Asa,  69,  96 

Tyler,  President  and  Whit- 
man, 198 

Underwood,  J.  L.,  360 
"Unholy     combinations"    in 

New  England,  107 
Unitarian  defection,  34 
United  Conference  of  Georgia, 

190 
United    Domestic    Missionary 

Society  of  New  York,  61 
Universalists  in  Massachusetts, 

35 
University  of  Michigan.  78 
Upper    Peninsula    added     to 

Michigan,  76 
Utah,  338-340 

Valdez,  Alaska,  351 

Ventosa,  C.  S..  255 

"Vermont  Home  Missionary  So- 
ciety, 31 

Vermont  in  1798,  25 

Vermont,  religious  growth  in, 
291 

Visiilance  Committees,  143,  215 

Virginia,  17,  173,  174 

Virginia  Military  District.  56 

Vitality  of  the  home-mission- 
ary seed.  330 

Voltaire,  his  prophecy,  333 


362 


Index 


Wabaunsee,  Kansas,  108 

Waldenstrom,  Dr., in  America, 
274 

Walla  Walla,  Fort,  196 

Walker,  Williston,  39, 100 

Ward,  Joseph,  129-134 

Ward,  Mrs.  Joseph,  133 

Ward,  W.  H.,  183,  257 

Wardner,  Idaho,  145 

Warren,  J.  H.,  216,  217,  221 

Warren,  W.  H.,  81 

Washington  Band,  209 

Washington,  207-212 

Watson,  C.  L.,  96 

Webster,  Daniel  and  Whit- 
man, 198 

Welch,  Josiah,  236 

Welsh  in  America,  275-277 

Wesleys,  the,  in  America,  176 

West,  the  early,  3c-46 

Western  races,  pioneer  races, 
350 

Western  Reserve,  42,  46 

Western  Reserve  College,  its 
war  record,  344 

"  Westward  "  in  1798,  26 

Whitefleld,  George,  21,  176 

Whitman  College  and  Atkin- 
son, 205 

Whitman,  Marcus,  194-200 

Whitney,  J.  C,  123 

Wiard,  H.  D.,  136 

"  Wild  Rushing  River,"  the,  85 

Willey,  S.  H.,  216,  217 


Williams,  E.  F.,  287 

Wilton  College,  268 

"  Wind  from  the  Holy  Spirit," 
345 

Wines,  F.  H.,  264 

Winship,  A.  E.,  288 

Wisconsin,  82-85 

Wisner,  Dr.,  61 

Woman's  American  Baptist 
Home  Missionary  Society, 
307 

Woman's  Baptist  Home  Mis- 
sionary Society,  307 

Woman's  departments,  310 

Woman's  Executive  Commit- 
tee of  Home  Missions,  305 

Woman's  Home  Missionary 
Association,  308 

Woman's  part,  303-315 

Woodbury,  F.  P.,  180 

Wright,  R.  B.,  147 

Wyoming,  138-143 

Yankton,  College,  133 

Young,  Brigham,  appointed 
governor,  233 

Young,  Brigham,  reaches 
Utah,  229 

Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation, its  work,  326-328 

Youna:  People's  Christian  En- 
deavor Society,  328 

Young  Women's  Christian  As- 
sociation, 328 


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